Don't Go (holding your breath)
by hellopurpletiger
Summary: People always think Ino's had her life all planned from the beginning, that she's ended up where she is by following the set plan the world has given her. The team she's assigned to, the role she plays, the girl that thinks she's a main character - when she plays the supporting role. "I'm done, but not out." Yamanaka Ino, from the beginning to the end. (WIP)
1. Academy Arc 1

**CHAPTER 1: Academy Arc 1**

For all the myth and legend that surrounded the infamy of the Ino-Shika-Cho, Ino did not meet either of her fellow clan heirs until she joined the Academy. But she had heard of them.

According to village gossip, the rather unabashed civilians that flittered in and out of the Yamanaka flower shop, they were exactly as their stereotypes predicted they would be. The Nara boy was smart and lazy. The Akamichi heir loved food.

She wondered what village gossip said of herself. Was she the typical Yamanaka? Another square peg in a square hole. How boring. What was a stereotypical Yamanaka? A people pleaser and really into their flowers, apparently. She wondered if the civilians knew anything at all of the ninja clans if they really thought that was all.

Listening to ninja gossip was a lot more interesting, although it wasn't so much eavesdropping as it was shinobi regaling tales of glory days over the counter to ask Dad about later over dinner, their hitai-ate glinting in the light. There was no chance she'd be able to listen in on the conversation of ninjas unless they wanted her to, no doubt. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio that Dad made up one third of was an example of the Will of Fire and Konoha's best teamwork.

Ino only really had to step into the shop behind her Dad to see that. The amount of people from even outside the clan that turned starry-eyed to "Yamanaka-sama" was enough to make her head swivel. The war they had been famous for fighting in was long over, but it didn't stop people from nodding respectfully as he passed by.

"Why have I never met Shikamaru and Chouji, Dad?" Ino asked, lifting her rice bowl up to eat. "Everyone always thinks we know each other already."

Across the table Dad hummed, chewing on a mouthful of eggs and rice. "Shikaku was wondering which of you would be the first to ask," he chuckled. "Of course, it would be my flower."

"I'm going to be an Academy student, Dad!" She groaned at the pet name. "You can't call me that anymore!"

Dad's grin widened and he barked out a laugh. "You're not that grown up yet, flower." He placed his empty bowl down, setting his chopsticks on the rim. "To answer your question, if I told you I wanted you to tidy your room, would you do it?"

Her room upstairs was… a tip, to say it kindly. Last she'd seen it, the bed had been strewn with clothes in preparation for her first day at the academy, her pencil case had been packed and re-packed at least five times with the collateral scattered across the floor, not to mention picking the best notebook to bring with her - which nearly resulted in the bookcase being upended all across the carpet. "…right now?" She winced.

Yamanaka Inoichi quirked an eyebrow. "I'll pretend that I'm not imagining how bad it is." Instead of meeting his eyes, she took another bite of her eggs over rice. "It's unlikely, right? If I asked it of you, you may do it but not until several hours later." She tried her best to look innocent. "But, if you _wanted_ to tidy your room – say to find your missing eraser – would you do it?"

She paused, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. And frowned. Actually, where was her favourite cupcake eraser? It was pink and sparkly and the chibi-cake had the cutest looking eyes, and…she hadn't seen it at all whilst she'd been packing her new school bag. "Dad…"

He shrugged, smiling pleasantly and then stood to start clearing away the dishes.

She scowled. "Thanks for the food! I'm finished!" And left him there to dart up the stairs to her bedroom. Point well made, Daddy. She toed open the door and stepped gingerly into her room. Ino had already stubbed her toe on a book on the way down to dinner, no need for a repeat performance. She detangled a few clothes' hangers from the pile and set about hanging up her dresses and smoothing out their creases. She stacked the notebooks back onto her shelves and dropped the sparkly purple one she'd chosen into her new backpack, Princess Gale beaming brightly on it's front. By the time she was done, there was a little pyramid formation of cute erasers on her desk, her pencil pot was full again, her clothes were away in their proper places, she could see the carpet again and she was sweaty from exertion.

Who knew it took so much longer to tidy a mess than it did to make it in the first place?

She flapped the duvet over the bed, until it floated down to nestle perfectly atop the mattress. Something dropped from the sheets, landing right by her pinky toe. Ino glanced down and then scowled again. The cupcake eraser.

She glared at the door. Was the lesson here that if it was Ino that wanted something done, she got to it faster than if someone told her to or that her Dad was a hundred times smarter and sneakier than her when it came to getting her chores done?

Carefully, she placed the lost stationery into her pencil case and deposited that into her bag. "Done." She said to nobody in particular, eying the finished product with satisfaction. She wondered if Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji had spent as long on their school bags as her or if they were the type of people who did their packing last minute? Or were they the type to let their parents' pack for them?

"Hmm… it's surprisingly neat."

She looked up. Dad was peeking his head around the door and surveying the room with, she narrowed her eyes, bemusement.

"I found Mr Cupcake."

"And the tidy room is a lovely bonus," He laughed outright this time.

The next morning Ino was awake before even the sun and she tumbled out of bed, scrambling for her clothes. "Academy! Academy!" She sung to herself in the mirror, pinning her hair back with flowery clips. Her hair was short now, like cool kunoichi Dad worked with, and it bounced as she shook it. Dad had said that she could pick her clothes if she wanted, but they had to be func-tion-al too, not just pretty.

So, underneath her skirt she was going to wear shorts too, that was about as much as she was willing to stand.

"Dad!" She called, snagging her backpack once she deemed herself ready. She bounded down the stairs, taking a few steps at a time and jumping down the last three, landing with a heavy thump. "Morning!" She skidded into the kitchen where the smells of miso and grilled fish were already wafting through.

"Morning, Ino-brat." She paused suddenly, as the figure cooking span to greet her.

Ino pouted. "Morning, Minoru-baka." She dropped her bag on a chair and manoeuvred her way into a seat at the table. "Where's Dad?"

"Your dad told me to tell you that he was called away this morning, but he'll pick you up from school." Minoru's long hair was scooped up into a bun at the base of his neck, his eyes fell on her clothes. "And that your gramps is going to lead you through your morning exercises today."

"W-WHAT!?" She spluttered. Hadn't Dad said she could skip them yesterday?

Yamanaka Minoru, her dad's favourite babysitter to call on, if only because he lived across the street, snickered in reply. "Breakfast isn't going to be ready for a while yet, better get going, before you make him grumpy!"

Ino hopped off the chair and headed out the back of the house. The Yamanaka clan wasn't the biggest clan in Konoha, nor would it ever be. The clan members that resided in the village were about half the size of the Nara or the Akimichi clans. They rarely had big families and in fact, if she tried to count them, she only knew of two families in the clan that had more than two children. Despite their modest numbers, the clan still resided on a fairly large plot of land, even though most of it was for plants and not people.

Yamanaka Inojirou was waiting for her on the back porch, his fingers curled around his ever-warm pipe and puffing a lazy stream of smoke into the morning air. Ino took a deep breath inhaling the strange scent of his tobacco and the comforting smell of fresh grass, still dewy from the morning mist.

"Morning jii-san!" She chirped.

"You're late, Ino."

He was grumpy as ever, gesturing her to follow him further into the garden and away from Dad's favourite flowers. There wasn't much to do in the way of morning exercises for Ino. Dad had said that she was a little too young to begin learning kata and practice any form of taijutsu no matter how basic, but he had taught her to do stretches and tumbles so that she wouldn't hurt herself. However, she had seen Minoru occasionally practicing kata before bed, or dad whipping around the clearing like a whirlwind, once she was older maybe that would be her morning exercises too?

There was a sharp rap on her shoulder. "Concentrate."

"Yes, jii-san." She sighed, bending backwards in her best attempt at being a limp noodle.

"More strength in your legs!"

She pushed her stomach up, feeling the strain in her thighs and calves, fingers gripping the grass and roots beneath her hands for purchase.

By the time she finished running through all the stretches, and her grandfather was satisfied, her knees and elbows were grass stained and Ino was more than grateful that she had a spare set of clothes upstairs. Minoru bustled her into the shower and told her to hurry down before the food got cold.

With her initial outfit ruined, she scowled and had to make do with a different one – a pair of blue overalls over a pink t-shirt with matching socks. She threw her grass-stained outfit into the hamper in the hallway and trundled back downstairs feeling a little irritated at the bad start to the day.

At the dining table in the kitchen, Inojirou-jii was already eating, his cane resting against the table leg. She eyed the stick suspiciously as she slid in to her seat. She'd just seen the old guy demonstrate her stretches, there was no way he needed a cane.

"Itadakimasu!" She chirped. It was probably there to chase her out the house if she was late, knowing him.

After breakfast, Minoru checked her bag one last time, whilst Ino slipped her shoes on and bounced up and down by the door, excitedly. He sighed at her prancing and took her hand. Outside, the street was busy, the hubbub of daily life starting up anew. She waved to the civilian lady across the street setting up her jewellery stand for the day, an array of sparkly metals and polished stones gleamed in the morning light.

"Starting the Academy today, Ino-chan?" The lady called, hands on her hips and a bright grin.

"Un!" She nodded back.

"Good morning," Minoru said above her as they continued past.

They passed a few other merchants opening shop, greeting them as they went. Minoru pointed out the Akimichi shops as they went by, the mouth-watering smells of fresh bao and roasting meats and charcoal ovens wafting in the surrounding air. Did the Akimichi Clan Head's family live above one of their shops? Or did they live in a fancy house in a compound nearby?

She kept an eye out for the clan heir as they walked. The Yamanaka lands and the Akimichi lands were fairly close to each other, so maybe he was taking the same path to the Academy too. It would be fun to walk to and from school together! The Akimichi that came into the flower shop were very distinctive looking compared to civilians. Apart from their bulkier shapes, they usually had red swirls on their cheeks – clan markings, Daddy had said – that made her eyes cross when she tried to follow them. She'd seen something like that in a manga once, where the bad guy had a swirly patterned disc that hypnotised the heroine's side kick. Wouldn't that be cool if Akimichi Chouji could do that?

They didn't see the Akimichi boy on their way though, so perhaps he'd left earlier than she did. She pouted, they might have met up if Inojirou-jii had let her skip her morning exercises though. The walk to the Academy was quite a fair distance, and by the time Minoru told her they were close, her feet were starting to tire.

The building was right next to the mountain and the Hokage's Tower. Next to the brightly coloured Tower, with its red tiered roofs and massive fire symbol, the Academy building looked almost like it was squatted by the tower's ankles. It was the closest she'd been to the Tower ever and the mountain too – the faces in the rock were a lot more intimidating up close and also kinda ugly when you had to see it from the chin upwards.

There was a small entrance ceremony in the courtyard, with plastic chairs set out in rows for the adults and the kids. Minoru stayed to watch and nudged her quiet when the Hokage took to the small wooden stage and podium set up at the front. Ino was sure it was probably a very good speech, very in-spi-ra-tion-al and all that, but it was also veeeerry long. Her eyes drifted from his wrinkled face somewhere between the work hard part and the Will of Fire part. There were so many children here!

She knew from the customers, that wandered in with their kids, that lots of them usually met to play at the park, but Dad wasn't particularly keen on letting her wander and he always made an especially funny face when he heard how many of children in the playground were boys. So, usually she played with her cousins or dragged Minoru into buying her new paints to splatter the terracotta plant pots in or helped in the shop. Ino had never seen this many kids before in one place!

And this was only the ones in her year – there were another three years on top of that. She lost count by the end of the fifth row, straining in her seat to see.

"Ino…" Minoru patted her shoulder, an eyebrow quirked. "Stop fidgeting."

Finally, the Hokage stepped down from the podium to the sound of applause and two ninja made their way onto the stage. They had similar green flak jackets on, hitai-ate fastened to one's forehead and the other's neck in blue. The one with a scar on his nose and, she eyed his hair thoughtfully, hair like the Nara that Minoru had stopped to speak to, cleared his throat. "Okay, so. With me, are: Aburame Shino…"

Minoru made a shushing sound, pointing forward to the stage. "This is probably your class, brat. Pay attention."

Ino rolled her eyes. Yamanaka was always bound to be at the very end, it would be ages before they said her name.

"…Akimichi Chouji…"

She perked up at the sound and scanned the crowd. There were only a few kids stood in a small cluster by the foot of the stage, but there was a bit of movement a few rows away. Eventually, a round boy with blushing ears as red as the swirls on his cheeks joined them, clutching a bag of snacks and fluffy ginger hair like his head was on fire. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, eyeing the watching crowd with some nervousness, gaze flitting left and right until they landed somewhere a few rows behind her.

She could make out the figure of the Chouza a few rows down now that the seats were emptying. His hulking shape was sat in a chair next to his pretty looking wife. He occasionally dropped by the shop to speak to Dad, but she wondered if he still recognised her, it had been a while since he'd visited whilst she was there. She hadn't met Chouji's mother before, but from this distance she looked kind and warm.

She tried to follow their son's gaze back, he wasn't looking at his parents, but Minoru rapped her on the head and told her to sit still.

"…Haruno Sakura; Hyuuga Hinata; Ito Hiroshi…"

The cluster was getting a little bigger at the front, but everyone was standing quietly even if some of them look as excited as Ino was feeling.

"…Nara Shikamaru…" At the front, the Akimichi perked up, shoulders slumping in relief as a slouching boy padded forwards. Shikamaru had spiky black hair like most of his clan. Unlike Chouji's bright red shirt, he was wearing muted grays and blacks, the Nara insignia stamped on the left side of his chest. He made his way straight up to Chouji, bumping shoulders with a faint grin before languidly settling in amongst the rest of their future classmates.

Ino gaped from her seat. …They knew each other! Why didn't Daddy tell her they already knew each other before the Academy? So unfair, now she had so much catching up to do! They were probably already best friends! Why did they get a head start?

She barely paid attention to the rest of the names before – finally – "Yamanaka Ino" was called out. Surprise, surprise, the last name on the list.

She resisted the urge to stomp up to everyone. Right, first day – she wasn't going to let some _boys_ ruin it just because _stupid Daddy_ hadn't told her they knew each other. Minoru gave her a firm squeeze on her shoulder and told her to "behave" and then she was walking towards her new class, head up and nose in the air.

She ended up sandwiched between a blond boy, wearing a faded t-shirt and orange shorts and another boy with blue hair and glasses, both looking around nervously as they followed their new teacher inside as she fumed silently.

Ino wanted to cry a little. Just a bit. Dad always told such cool stories about being part of a team, but not only were they both boys but Chouji and Shikamaru were already friends! She was going to be left out of all their games! This would totally suck!

She sniffed angrily, not looking up. Well, fine. Who needed them anyways! Genin teams were ages away. And maybe if she made cooler better friends they would see that she didn't have to be paired with those stupid boys anyways! She squared her shoulders, patted her hair to make sure her hairclip was still in place and then grinned. That's right! She was totally going to make them regret not being her friend and become super pretty and popular and the most kick-ass of kick-ass ninjas.

And then, they'd be begging her to be their teammate! Ha! The boys next to her shifted warily at her sudden mood change but she ignored them.

The classroom the teacher led them to was pretty big, with huge windows that overlooked the village and let the light stream in. There were benches arranged in rows on a slant so that the furthest seats were higher than the ones in front and no matter where you sat you could see the blackboard. And the teacher could see you. The back seats filled up first, Shikamaru and Chouji finding a place with their backs against the wall. The blond boy she'd walked in with let out an excited yelp and dashed forward to crash into a boy with a white puppy in his hood and made for seats by the back corner, laughing loudly.

"You can pick your own seats for now!" The teacher yelled belatedly, with a heavy sigh afterwards.

Ino eyed the quickly filling seats and found one next to the inner wall on one of the middle rows. Ignoring the pair of eyes probably watching her – if she knew about them, they probably knew about her, which only made it all the more infuriating th- she sat herself down and took out her pencil case and her notebook before making herself turn to her seat partner with a grin.

"I'm Yamanaka Ino, nice to meet you!"

The startled girl next to her jumped and then smiled back widely. "I'm Miura Nao!" She had dark hair and a pink dress on, and a Princess Gale pencil too.

"I love your hair, purple's my favourite colour!" She chirped back in reply.

"Thank you, I'm trying to make it longer like my sister's!" Nao blushed.

Ino leant forwards to rest her chin in her hand. The other kids still weren't settled yet, busy sizing each other up and telling each other who should sit with who. "Is your sister a ninja?"

"Oh, no," Nao giggled, "She's still an Academy student like us, Ami is in the year above."

"Cool! Has she taught you loads?" It sure sounded handy to have a sibling who knew exactly what happened next.

Nao wrinkled her nose. "Ami is really good at ninja tag, but she says I'm too little to learn her tricks."

Finally the teacher – who introduced himself as Iruka-sensei – called for quiet and introduced the other teacher who would be helping – Mizuki-sensei. He wrote their names on the board and told them three facts about themselves. Ino sat up to listen more closely. The trick was that one of these facts was a lie and the class had to guess which one.

Mizuki started first, smiling pleasantly. He was pretty handsome, with a pointed jaw and silver hair that shook as he spoke. "I am Mizuki-sensei, I am a chunin of Konoha, my favourite colour is green and I had miso for breakfast. Which one is my lie?" He smirked at them all, and even from this distance Ino felt herself blush.

Right, he was probably a chunin – he had the green flak jacket, and none of the typical jounin-blues. So fact number one was probably true. His face hadn't looked like he was obviously lying when he'd said his favourite colour or food. She frowned. Around the classroom, silence had fallen as everyone tried to work it out.

"Two guesses only…Yes, you, what's your name?"

"I'm Inuzuka Kiba!" She craned her neck to see. No one else had put their hand up. The boy stood up at his desk and Ino recognised him as the boy with the puppy in his hood. "The third one is a lie! Ha, I can't smell miso soup on you at all!"

Next to her, Nao made a sound of confusion, cocking her head right. "He's an Inuzuka," Ino whispered. The purple haired girl looked even more confused.

"I see," Mizuki smiled and clapped his hands. "Very good, so you can tell I didn't have miso soup this morning. Good job."

The boy barked out a laugh and sat down, whispering to the blond boy next to him.

Iruka's lie was a little easier to spot. He told the class that he was a medic, that his bedsheets were blue at the moment and that he looked forward to teaching them. His flak jacket was clear of the medic badge that most of the medic corps wore in the village, Nara Shikamaru pointed out – the teacher had picked him much to her annoyance, even though her hand was actually up!

Once he'd answered, the boy slumped back in his seat, eyes half-shut sleepily. Lazy, too!

They went around the class, getting rowdier as more thought up their facts and raised their hands to guess other's lies. It was pretty fun actually. Ino found out that the shy Hyuuga girl was the heiress to her clan, which was cool to know because most of the other clan heirs were boys much to her distaste; and that the Inuzuka's sister once tore out someone's throat with her teeth which was gross but also kind of awesome. Some of the kids were really bad at lying and made up really strange or unbelievable lies. Like a skinny, tall boy sat at the very front who panicked and said his goldfish had taken him to school this morning. Or a girl with glasses who had enthusiastically proclaimed that she didn't know how to speak and mimed so, but had spoken for her other two facts.

Shikamaru had boredly drawled that he liked sleeping, watching clouds and playing shogi. Ino wanted to be the one to guess correctly, just to see his super shocked face. She narrowed her eyes to watch his face as he said it but, apart from his moving lips, it barely twitched. In the end, no one guessed right and he said that "I don't just like sleeping, I would die if you didn't let me sleep." Completely deadpan, before drooping into his seat.

Chouji was not as good as Shikamaru at keeping a straight face and kept glancing at his seatmate, his packet of crisps and his hands. He lied about not liking barbeque flavoured crisps, which Ino guessed correctly, confessing that he liked all crisps, no matter the flavour.

Ino's facts were pretty good if she could say so herself. She stood up, like Nao had seconds ago when she'd lied about having a brother, and smoothed out her skirt. "My favourite ice cream is strawberry flavour," She beamed, focusing on her classmates faces screwed up in concentration. "I like gardening and baking!"

"And your name?" Iruka smiled kindly at her.

"Oh!" She blushed. "I'm Fujiwara Taeko!" And then sat down, red faced. It was a bad lie admittedly. There was no Fujiwara Taeko in the class because she'd just made up a name, but she was sure nobody was really concentrating on the class register when there were so many people in the class. There were two guesses – which asked if she was lying about her favourite ice cream (she was not) or if she really liked gardening, which was boring (she glared at the boy that said that, rude, it was not boring at all).

"Alright, Taeko-chan," Mizuki asked from the front. "Tell us which one was your lie then?"

She bit her lip, in effort not to giggle. Ha! She'd got them all! She bowed her head. "Ano, my name is actually Yamanaka Ino, sensei!"

There was a roar of angry muttering around the classroom and Ino suddenly wondered if this was exactly the opposite of what Minoru meant when he told her to "behave". Her hands suddenly felt a little sweaty. "Um, you… you didn't say we had to give you _only_ two truths, just that one of them had to be a lie…?"

Iruka let out a small chuckle, "Right, I guess we should have been more clear, then?"

Ino nodded, a little more hesitantly.

"Very sneaky, Ino-chan." He smiled before turning to her seriously, "But next time try and follow the instructions?"

Ino nodded again, feeling her face flush for real this time. Next to her Nao giggled – wasn't it lucky that Nao hadn't given her away? And Shikamaru and Chouji, they probably had known exactly what her name was. She glanced back up at them but Chouji was already focusing on the next person speaking and Shikamaru had his cheek on the desk. Okay, maybe they weren't _stupid…_ but she still didn't like them!

After the lying game, the teachers hushed the class again and went over what textbooks they'd need in the future and making sure that everyone knew what stationery they needed to bring to class. They didn't need to bring kunai or shuriken or any weapons to school for lessons, the Academy had equipment for everybody – anyone caught with live metal outside of practice would be punished. There was a school shop for people that didn't bring lunches but they had to bring money with them. And running through other school rules. Girls were to stay behind tomorrow after class for kunoichi lessons.

Ino tried to take neat notes. Her kanji was still a bit shaky and ugly, but it was readable. And, if she decorated it with flower doodles and love hearts then that made it infinitely better. Some of the others were taking notes diligently too and listening raptly – a girl with pink hair (Harada? Haruho?) was filling her pages so fast you could hear the whoosh every time she turned the page – whilst others were doodling or even making paper planes. Nao had drawn a very ugly picture of something that had wings but Ino couldn't tell what it was.

Finally, after taking pity on the class and letting them design their own nametags – no sequins or stickers but they were allowed to use coloured pens and pencils if they had any and Ino had _loads_ – Iruka clapped his hands again and announced loudly, "Alright, class 1-A," The roar of noise quietened, a little, "You have an hour for lunch so grab your bentos! Mizuki-sensei will take anyone that needs to buy a lunch. I want you all lined up by the entrance when the bell rings!"

At lunch, Nao introduced her to her other friends from the other classes, who all knew each other from playing at the parks and wandering the streets while their parents worked. There was Nao's best friend Suzu, a mousy brown haired girl with hair shorn short and a blue tracksuit with butterflies, and their friend Izumi, who smiled wanly. The other girls in 1-A clustered towards them so by the time Ino's bento was unpacked their little circle had become quite a lot larger than just Nao and Ino.

She set out the sections of her lunchbox – a little box with a riceball wrapped in seaweed, another with carrots chopped up into sticks and a strawberry pudding.

"Oooh! That looks yummy, Ino-chan!" Suzu gasped. "Did your mum make it?"

Ino shook her head and took a chomp out of the rice ball. "Minoru-baka did, he's my neighbour." Suzu had a box of fried rice, topped with eggs and vegetables and an apple resting to the side. "Your lunch looks good too!"

"Thanks! My mum made it!"

Four other girls from their class joined them, although the Hyuuga heiress was not one of them, Akari, Ichika, Yui and that crazy note-taker with the pink hair who was, ironically, called Sakura. They were mostly chatty enough, and when there was awkward silences Ino happily piped up to get the chatter going again. Akari and Yui were seamstress' daughters, and Izumi's dad worked in administration in the Tower. Sakura haltingly said her parents were retired-chunin-turned-merchants. Ichika was an orphan and determined to become a ninja, and Nao and Suzu seemed to just be in it because it seemed cool.

"I want to be a super strong ninja too, Ichika-chan!" She said. The other girl's face brightened from its thunderous expression at the lack of ambition in the group and Ino hoped her face didn't show her thoughts as much as this girl's did. "Dad was a super strong and cool ninja during the wars, and everyone that comes into the shop always says so." The other girls made amazed sounds.

"Aren't you scared of getting hurt?" Sakura said quietly, voice scarcely above a whisper, her cheeks red at having spoken out. "My mum got hurt and that's why she's not a ninja anymore."

Ino shook her head. "No way, I just have to get really strong and then, tah-dah, there's no way I'd get hurt then!"

Some of the other children were sat in groups too. Ino's group had formed a little circle under a tree, but a little way away she could make out a group of boys roughhousing, the hyper blond ("I'm Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo!") and Inuzuka Kiba (the dog-boy) from earlier among them. Another boy with dark sunglasses on and a high collared trench coat – Aburame, for sure – was beyond that looking at something in his hands. And there was Hyuuga Hinata at a bench by the entrance back into the Academy, swinging her legs and eating lunch alone.

"- okay, I mean it could be worse –" Nao was just saying as Ino tuned back into the conversation, "Iruka-sensei and Mizuki-sensei seem a lot nicer than Nee-chan's teachers, apparently Dazai-sensei made one of her friends cry because she wouldn't let her go to the toilet!"

Ino wrinkled her nose. "Isn't that really bad for you anyways, to hold it in for too long? It's not fair for a teacher not to let her go." She sighed, "Hey guys," the other girls turned to look at her, "Should we ask Hyuuga-san to sit with us?" She gestured over her shoulder. "She looks lonely by herself."

"Hyuuga?" Nao grimaced while Ichika shuddered. "She's kind of creepy though, always whispering and staring and her eyes are super weird." As one the group looked up. The Hyuuga girl met their eyes for a moment before snatching her gaze back, cheeks blistering red, shoulder shrinking.

Akari shook her head. "…and don't her clan have that weird eye thing, how gross!"

There was crescendo in noise as most of the class finished their lunch and joined the roughhousing boys in a game of tag. At the fringes of the playground, under another tree she saw Chouji turn to say something to Shikamaru and they dusted themselves off to join the fray. There was a bit of a stall as the group squabbled to get settled before the two boys found themselves welcomed into the fold. Ino turned away, disinterested, focusing on Shino, who seemed to have retreated further into the bushes he had been sat by, and Hinata, who was resolutely staring at her hands.

After lunch, signalled by the bell, Mizuki led the class back into the classroom to drop off empty lunchboxes and then guided them to a wide open and dusty courtyard on the other side of the building. It was a taijutsu class, and Iruka cheerfully got them to run through several stretches.

It was easier than she thought it would be, a lot simpler than Inojirou-jii's exercise and his stern glares at her bad posture. "Good job, Ino-chan." Mizuki said at one point and Ino was sure she fairly glowed. Glancing around, it was obvious who had done stretches before and who was completely new to it all.

Most of the clan kids - Hinata, the Aburame boy, Kiba, the Uchiha boy - looked comfortable, barely breaking a sweat as they moved from one position to the next. Shikamaru and Chouji were one of these as well, although Shikamaru looked like he would much rather be sleeping and Chouji was looking longingly at bag of crisps Iruka had confiscated.

By contrast, the girls she had eaten lunch with were sweaty and groaning by the end. It baffled Ino. She knew that most clan kids were made to do a bit of exercise before coming to the Academy, but surely the civilian kids weren't that far behind?

On the running track, it was a similar story. On the surface there wasn't much of a noticeable difference. Kiba and Naruto took off, unheeding of their teachers yells to "pace yourselves!" leaving dust clouds in their wake. Everyone kept a mostly even speed apart from that, a mild jog that kept Ino moving and warm but comfortable. It was as they were doing their third lap that the signs became more pronounced. Kiba and Naruto slowed to jog alongside the rest of the class, panting lightly, but even more of the class began slowing from the steady pace they had previously kept, dropping further and further back, until by the fifth, Ino had passed Nao, Akari and Yui twice. Ichika and Sakura were keeping up, but only just.

At the tip of the group was the Uchiha boy, the white and red uchiwa fan emblazoned on his back and a deep frown on his face as he glared irritated over his shoulder at Kiba and Naruto bickering behind. Every time the two boys started gaining, the Uchiha would scowl a little deeper and put on a burst of speed. All three of them were starting to pant heavily but didn't let up at all.

Ino kept to the middle of the pack, trying to keep her pace steady and her breathing controlled. Chouji and Shikamaru were somewhere near the back no doubt – the pineapple head sure lived up to his clan name.

She sped up a little so that she was running alongside Hinata. "Hi," She panted out, glancing at the other girl after a breath and then bringing her eyes back to the track so she wouldn't trip. Hinata did nearly trip, she was so startled, like that bunny that used to visit Cousin Asahi's garden much to his ire. "I'm Ino!"

Hinata's blush spread down from her ears to flower on her cheekbones. "Um!" She took a deep breath, eyes facing forwards but looking unsure. "Hinata!" The red intensified. "I mean, um, that's my name?"

"Nice to meet ya!" Ino grinned and then went back to focus on her running.

Eventually, once the whole class had finished ten laps – by which point it didn't matter whose kid you were, everyone was sweaty, panting and gulping water like they were dying. Ino flopped down between Ichika and Nao, drinking from her water bottle.

"Right, that's enough of a break! Everyone, up!" Iruka half-yelled into the courtyard as the class let out a chorus of groans in response. She took it back, Iruka was the worst and Mizuki, no matter how pretty he was, wasn't much better!

They went through another series of stretches before starting push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks and even an obstacle course full of dry dirt and dead leaves. Ino had to fill up her water bottle twice, she drank that much, and by the time they were led back to their bags at the end of the day, she was more than ready to jump into a cold bath.

She scooped up her bag and waved goodbye to the other girls, smiling at Hinata as she went out the doors. Outside the Academy building, parents were crowding the gates and mingling with each other. There was a man with dark red hair and she wondered if he was related to Sakura? Her dad perhaps? It seemed that the ninja families didn't mingle too much with the obviously civilian ones. The red haired man was not wearing a flak jacket or a headband but neither were the other adults he was talking to. By contrast, the Uchiha parents stood together, speaking lowly and looking stiff and awkward amongst the exuberance of the other parents.

Ino scanned the crowd quickly, looking for someone tall…very blond… and… "Daddy!" He was standing a little further away, but his blond hair was pretty obvious in the bright afternoon sun. She darted through the crowd. If she had any more energy left, Ino would have totally done a run up to leap at him, but as it was she was tired and achy and she had nearly lost her hair clip today on top of everything.

It wasn't until she was nearly next to him that she realised who he was standing with. "How was your day, flower?" He smiled and leaned down to hug her. She hugged him back, trying not to stare at his companions.

Of course, Ino-Shika-Cho. Slouched next to him was the tall figure of Nara Shikaku, sharp eyes not looking at her but scanning the crowd for his son, probably.

"Ah, so here is Ino-chan, how are you?" Akimichi Chouza boomed, his wife giving him a fond smile.

Suddenly shy, Ino tentatively nodded back. "I'm good, Chouza-oji! How are you?"

"I," He announced loudly, "am very well, but in need of a snack!" He winked, even as his wife swatted him.

"Chouza! No more anpan! You'll give yourself a heart condition!"

"You know your husband, Aiko. His sugar addiction is intense." Dad laughed, grasping her hand in his. Ino eyed the rest of the draining crowd a little enviously, but he didn't make any move to leave. She tried to resist the urge to squirm where she stood. She'd done so well in avoiding them all day and now…

"Chouji! Shikamaru!" Akimichi Aiko called out, waving her hand in the air and two boys made their way out of the crowd.

They both looked as sweaty and exhausted as Ino felt. There was a trail of dirt across Chouji's knees and Shikamaru's hair was even messier, if that was possible. Chouji immediately headed for his parents whilst the spiky haired boy turned to the Nara head.

"How was school, boys?" Inoichi asked as she clutched his hand, trying not to peer to curiously at them. She'd not really seen them this close and they'd never approached her throughout the day either, always keeping a distance. Now that they were within range, there were a few things she'd not noticed before. Like that Chouji had a nice smile or that Shikamaru's eyes were constantly sharp and observant, in spite of looking like he was about to take a nap.

Chouji smiled a little, happy to tell them. "Inoichi-oji! We met some new people, and our teachers are nice!"

"Troublesome." Shikamaru huffed out at the same time, but it seemed to be habit rather than irritation at their first day at school. Everyone laughed a little at his reply.

"Does Yoshino know he says that?" Chouza rumbled with amusement.

Shikaku groaned, hand lifting to pinch his brow. "She already nagged me about it when he was three, I think she thinks he's beyond saving now."

There was a nearly unnoticeable pause before he turned to Ino. "And how was your day, Ino-chan?"

"Great!" Ino beamed. She was totally going to show these boys that she had friends and who needed them anyways! "I made a bunch of friends and we talked all the way through lunch. And did you know Nao's older sister is in the year above, cool, right?" She swung around to face her dad. "And Yui and Akari are really good at sewing! And their name badges were really pretty, although mine had the most colours – " She tilted the badge on her chest up. "- see? It has butterflies and a rainbow and the leaf symbol and I wrote my name super neatly. And –"

Ino continued talking even as her dad swung her up into his arms so she wouldn't have to walk. She would have made more of a fuss if Chouji hadn't been placed on his dad's shoulders or Shikamaru hadn't slumped onto Shikaku's back. As it was, it made the whole walk home a lot faster and a lot more comfortable - so really, there was no reason to complain. The adults listened to her prattle, she noticed, with an indulgent or, in her dad's case, a fond look, but did glance occasionally at their own silent children. For a second, she contemplated asking either of the boys if they'd made any friends but, she scowled, they hadn't asked her anything either.

"Ah," Dad said, his voice humming in her ear from where it was pressed against the crook of his neck. "Say bye, Ino," He directed at her before turning to the others, "We'll see you at Yakiniku Q, later?"

"Seven, right?" The adults confirmed.

Ino glanced away from her Dad's shoulder to look at the two boys. Shikamaru had his head down, lolling against his own dad but she was sure she had seen him twitch earlier. And Chouji would meet her eyes and then shyly glance away. Never mind, they were stupid! "Bye!" She chirped and then tilted her head into Dad's shoulder so she could hide a little.

The sound and rhythm of her dad's footsteps started up again, and the voices of the two other families faded away as they continued on. There was a moment of silence before Dad let out a soft sigh. "So, how was school, really?"

"'kay." She mumbled. "The girls in my class are fine, even if none of them apart from Ichika and Hinata, probably, want to be actual kunoichi." She scowled at the freckle on his neck. "And I thought our teachers were nice until we had taijutsu class. They suck."

"Mmm," Dad said, shifting his arms a little but not reacting apart from that. There was another beat of silence and then, carefully, he said: "And Chouji and Shikamaru?"

Ino felt herself stiffen. Poop. Instead of saying anything, because if she opened her mouth it was one-hundred-percent going to be calling them stupid, she shrugged.

"…did you have a fight with them?"

Incredulous, Ino sat upright in his arms, swivelling to face him and pinned her hands on his face. She fixed him her meanest, meanest glare and hoped he got the message. "Daddy! Why didn't you tell me they were already friends? They didn't – " She felt her face start to crumple and eyes sting. "They didn't even say hello!" Her voice trembled as Inoichi tensed up beneath her. And to her horror, Ino wailed. "They- they hate me!"

It wasn't even fair! She hadn't even said hello yet and they were already best friends, she was going to end up left behind all the time! And they'd always gang up on her! Everyone knew it was always boys against girls – and there were more boys than girls, she'd lose!

"Flower, darling," Dad's voice was soft, "I'm sure they don't hate you."

"Daddy, they're already friends and I'm going to be left out!" She just wanted to go home and go to bed. Crawl under the sheets and not come out. "They do hate me!"

He set her down on the step as he unlocked the front door to the house, ushering her in. "Just because they're already friends doesn't mean they can't be friends with you too."

Ino lifted her hand to rub her eyes angrily. "Why didn't you take me to meet them before?"

Dad sighed, "They met at the park once and that's how they became friends. Their parents didn't take them to meet each other, sweetheart."

"It's not fair!" She kicked her shoes off, watching them smack into the wall with some satisfaction. "I'm always going to be the odd one out now!"

"Ino." There was a stern look on Dad's face, his brow furrowed and tense. "Do not kick your shoes."

She felt her cheeks redden and, grudgingly - because she was still angry at him but also because it made her tummy twist when Dad got angry at her – picked her shoes up. "Sorry, Daddy." She set them down by the door in a neat row. "I – I just!" He looked alarmed as her breath hitched. "I just thought we'd be best friends!"

His face softened and he knelt down to pull her into a hug. His shoulder was wet under her cheek. "Ino-flower, just because I was in a team with their dads doesn't mean you'll instantly be friends." He said, "And if, you don't want to be friends with them, that's fine. No one tells my daughter what to do." He held her at arms length for a moment and then ruffled her hair. "But, if you want to try, then maybe you should start with saying hello first, hmm?"

* * *

 **A/N** : Purely self indulgent, id explain myself but thats really all the explanation needed... Lol

In other news, i have exams soon and ive blocked myself out from AO3 on my laptop bc i know theyre important exams and here i am, posting from my phone w v low self control... Why. Why.


	2. Academy Arc 2

**CHAPTER 2: _Academy Arc 2_**

Ino hadn't realised her Dad had wanted her to put his advice to use so soon. After she had calmed down a little, he'd let her have some candy and then told her to have a bath and get ready to go out to dinner to celebrate her first day at the Academy. And somehow, not four hours after that, she'd ended up sat opposite Chouji and Shikamaru, whilst the adults conversed at a separate table.

She glared at her dad's back and watched in satisfaction as he twitched guiltily. The adults weren't being particularly subtle either, what with the glances back at them and the whispering.

Ino turned back to her bowl and shovelled a mouthful of rice into her mouth. Chouji was watching his beef browning on the grill with a look of intense concentration. And Shikamaru was drinking his tea with a bored expression.

They likely would have continued sitting in silence if not for the "Shikamaru!" Yoshino hissed.

The boy in question slumped his shoulders. "Troublesome." He drawled before putting his cup down.

Ino stiffened, her eyes narrowed. What did he just call her?

"You already know our names," He drawled, at last, meeting her eyes for the first time. "I'm Shikamaru, and he's Chouji."

"Did you just call your mum troublesome?" She said instead.

"No," And then his eyes were narrowing. "Just her nagging."

Chouji had frozen once the conversation had started, the slice of beef he'd been watching intently halfway to his mouth. Shikamaru had leant forwards, elbows on the table.

Ino sat back in her seat and eyed the two of them. "You're rude."

"…guys, let's not – " Chouji began.

"Well, you've been glaring at your Dad since we sat down." The Nara boy retorted, "So are you."

"I didn't call him names!" Apart from calling him stupid in her head, she supposed, but he wouldn't know that. "You're waaaay ruder!" She folded her arms on her chest.

He snorted. "And you glared at us all day today, so actually, you're the rudest."

"That's not even a real word!" Ino slammed her hand onto the table. "And I was not!"

Shikamaru, Ino decided, was the rudest, most lazy person she had ever met. When Ino's plate of tofu came out for her to grill, he made the loudest snort and then proceeded to fill the whole grill with his and Chouji's food and she'd had to wait until it was all cooked before the grill was clear. Well, jokes on him because she totally ate some of his teriyaki beef too. Chouji had flailed a little and told them to stop arguing but the moment they'd turned to him, he had the last piece of meat in his bowl quicker than they could see. The Akimichi wasn't bad, but he didn't seem to stick up for himself (apart from when it came to food) and always agreed with Shikamaru. Ino decided she had been totally right, the two boys were absolutely going to always gang up on her.

Dad probably thought that they would be friends by the end of dinner, but by the time the dishes were being cleared Ino was _this_ close to shoving Shikamaru's stupid smirking face into the remains of her tofu and throwing her juice in his yes-man Chouji's dumb face.

"So, how was it?" Dad asked as they left the restaurant.

Ino huffed and stomped her way down the street beside him. "Boys are stupid and dumb!"

He winced. "…Even Chouji and Shikamaru?"

"Especially them!" She fumed.

Kunoichi classes started the next day. Luckily, there was no taijutsu class after lunch so she wasn't so achy or tired from having such a long day at school, although history had been super boring. The boys scurried out, whooping and jeering at getting dismissed. She wasn't sure whether to be annoyed by the lack of reaction from Chouji and Shikamaru, or grateful. Those two were super weird. The girls from the other first year classes filtered in until the room was full again. Across the way, Ichika looked ready to bolt at the idea of anything girly but before she got the chance a woman entered the classroom and shut the door.

The kunoichi leading the class was a chunin who introduced herself as Suzume-sensei. She had long dark hair piled in an artful bun atop her head and her hitai-ate around her neck like a choker. There was a hush as she began to speak, her voice melodic but stern and around her, Ino felt everyone sit up a little straighter, even Ichika.

"Your classes with me will be based on the basic skills every kunoichi should learn." She said, striding forwards gracefully, the long panels of her skirt swishing around her ankles. "You may not think they are necessary to be a ninja, but know that they are essential skills that you must learn to be of use to the village." Here, her voice dropped. "Infiltration – this is what most kunoichi specialise in."

Everyone was suitably impressed by the speech. Even Akari and Yui, who had shown no signs of wanting to become ninja, looked interested at the idea.

"Today, I will be assessing your abilities in different kunoichi skills. I expect no cheating and no helping your friends either." She said. A murmur of alarm rippled through the benches and next to Ino, Nao bit her lip nervously. Suzume held up her hand for silence. "My classes aren't divided by year but by skill level, so you may be ahead of some of your friends in one area and behind them in another. To graduate from my classes, you must be proficient in at least three skill areas."

She made them line up at the front of the classroom and led them into a different hall. Instead of rows of benches and a blackboard, this room was practically empty. There were two rows of cushions on the floor and one at the head of the room, but that was all the furniture that was present. Suzume gestured for everyone to sit and Ino ended up between Ichika and Nao, fidgeting nervously as they waited for the teacher to explain.

"Our first test will be flower arrangement." She announced, laying out a box in front of each girl and a different shaped container too. Ino's was a modest round black container, completely opaque and matte finished so that it looked almost textured instead of polished smooth. Suzume put her hands together in a seal, "Kai!"

Behind her, what Ino had thought was just a plain wall shimmered and fell away to reveal rows and rows of flower pots. She squinted at a label on one of the boxes and had to suppress a surprised gasp. They were totally Yamanaka flowers! Her teacher was a customer!

"Please be careful with the flowers when you remove them for your arrangement." Suzume nodded serenely before sitting back down at the head of the group. "When you are ready, you may go up and collect your flowers. The test begins now."

At once, there was a rush as everyone made for the prettiest or most elaborate looking plants. Ino looked back down at her equipment box instead. She flipped it open to check what was inside the box: two pair of ikebana scissors, one for flowers and one for branches probably; a roll of green floral wire and another roll of green floral tape; a bundle of bamboo skewers and a pair of gloves. The scissors weren't of particularly good quality but they would do, although her Dad would definitely have had a fit if he saw them. She took a glance around the room. Most of the girls had already sat back down with armfuls of flowers of bright colours and flashy petals. Only she and Hinata hadn't stood to get their own yet.

Shrugging and snapping on her gloves, Ino stood and went for the boxes of flowers. What was left was a little bruised and damaged by the initial mad rush. She found a few long dark leaves of phormium, an almost burgundy-purple in colour with beautifully patterned veins; a long stemmed floret of pale pink hydrangeas and a couple sections of flowering lilac moss. Dad really liked flower arranging on his days off, he said it was relaxing, which Ino could understand, but she much preferred gardening instead. Sure, the arrangements were pretty and you could bring them inside to admire them, but it was so much more satisfying to have dirt under your fingernails and the scent of _living_ plant life in the air.

"Yamanaka, correct?" Suzume said, stopping to inspect her arrangement.

Ino nodded. "Thank you for your patronage to our shop, sensei."

The hydrangea wasn't the best looking that she'd seen, there were a few bruised petals on the fringes of the floret but it stood well and was healthy at least. She had selected a long dark leaf, almost three times the length of the container's width to sit at the very back, standing upright and straight. Two other leaves twisted outwards from the base, fanning out behind the hydrangea floret. Covering the kenzan base, and the pins that kept the plants in place, was some of the flowering moss she'd picked up. The moss was actually the best part of the whole design. Sure, it was the plainest part of the arrangement when compared to the large leaves or the bright floret, but the little lilac flowers could make your fingers numb if you kept touching them _and_ made the other plants faintly numbing by proximity too, if left long enough.

The kunoichi nodded. "Good job, then."

"Thank you!" What a relief! It would have been embarrassing if she had said anything else. Ino fully expected that she'd be at the same level as the other girls when it came to embroidering and playing instruments and what not, but she was determined she was going to be the best at flowers. Nao didn't even look up from her flopping bouquet at the remark, so clearly she wasn't the only one expecting that the Yamanaka stereotype would ring true. Everyone knew they ran a flower shop, for goodness' sake!

The other tests were quite a bit harder.

They had a sewing assessment where they had to demonstrate how they would mend a shirt and also embroider some cheap lace. It was no surprise that as daughters of seamstresses, Yui and Akari were really good at that. Ino ended up stabbing herself with the stupid needle a couple times and trying to make sure the stitching was neat was really hard. The shirt looked okay when she was done, but there was a lump in the fabric where a huge knot the size of a pea had somehow occurred. She'd been so frustrated trying to detangle it that she'd stabbed herself with the needle an additional three times. And she'd torn the lace, so. Yeah.

Instruments had been bust too. She'd moved a little too slow and ended up with a bamboo flute instead of something cool, like the strung tabletop instrument that Nao had snatched, and the best she could make out of it was a piercing whistling sound that had Suzume wincing. Not a good sign from the assessing teacher.

There was a written test too, on basic etiquette in different countries, the appropriate dress in different courts, how low or high a fan should be held in different settings and the like. Ino was completely unsurprised by how fast bookish Sakura whizzed through the paper, that girl was the biggest bookworm she'd ever met!

At the end of the testing, Suzume gathered all the girls together and pinned class placement lists onto the wall. As much as Ino was hoping to get into a good class for flower arranging, she also didn't want to be put in a class by herself. She pushed herself forwards and craned her neck to get a better look.

For music, it seemed she was in one of the lower sets, and most of the girls in the year were in that class too so it wasn't too bad. The only girls that weren't were Suzu, Nao's best friend; Hinata, who looked surprised despite her flawless shamisen performance; and a handful of other girls she didn't know. A quick glance across the different class lists showed the other heiress was ahead of the trend in all the other kunoichi skills too, placing either in class A or B for nearly everything. Nao – who had broken _strings_ on her koto - was not in class D, and she'd actually placed in the remedial class E.

Ino had managed to test out of the normal class alongside bookish Sakura for the court and etiquette skills, which made her shoot a smile to the blushing pink haired girl, but apart from that was in the normal classes for everything else. Flower arrangement and other infiltration techniques, however, had her placed in class A. Which…she ran her eyes down the list of names looking for someone else with 'class A' written next to them…and sighed. On her own. Greeaat.

The following weeks at the Academy passed by with very little excitement. Oh, the Academy had been super fun at first, meeting new people and learning new things, but like most other aspects of ninja life, Ino found that they were still too young to learn anything cool.

Apart from the dreaded taijutsu/torture classes, Year 1 at the Academy had four main classes. These were literacy, mathematics, history and basic hand seals, and usually their lessons were a combination of these to keep its students on their toes. Most of what Iruka and Mizuki taught was very book based which some – like Sakura and Akari – excelled in, but most didn't. For the most part, Ino found the classes somewhat interesting despite this. It was cool to learn about the founders and which clan was responsible for what and the stories behind all these famous names. But what Ino was most interested in was what parts of the village the girls had contributed to.

Most big names were guys. All the past Hokage had been men. Most of the heroes from the past wars were also men. The Toad Sage. The Ino-Shika-Cho. The Yellow Flash. Hashirama Senju and Tobirama after him. Very few of the names in the history books were women.

The one bright spot was Lady Tsunade, the strongest kunoichi in the world and founder of the medic corps to boot. Ino was sure she wasn't the only one who had stars in her eyes by the time Iruka had finished telling them about her, Sakura looked ready to keel over and even a few of the boys looked impressed by a "kunoichi who could crumple heads like they were paper." Nao tried to ask what happened to the sage but Iruka called for a break and let them out to lunch. Apart from the Legendary Sannin though, there were very few other mentions of women.

Although history was occasionally frustrating – and maths was even worse, Ino found she strangely enjoyed the hand seal drills. Iruka would spend an hour once a week going over a new seal and then make them practice it for homework. Her fingers were a little clumsier compared to their teachers', but it was oddly soothing to be able to move her hands to form the seal, hold it for a breath and disengage, and add the new zodiac seal to the expanding list. They weren't taught anything to do with chakra yet, so nothing happened if she messed up the seals or practiced the sequence forward and backwards. Iruka and Mizuki would sometimes pick a student at random to recognize a hand seal in the middle of their other classes. There were times they'd be going over math questions on the board and he would turn around with someone's name and a seal gestured.

Chakra, they explained when the hyper Naruto had asked, would be taught in their fourth year, much to his disappointment and the rest of the class' too. Ino had to admit it would have been pretty cool to make a clone the next time Dad asked if she was in bed yet.

Beyond that disastrous dinner, he had not made much of an effort to make her speak to them. In class, the boys didn't act too differently. Shikamaru spent most of his days with his head pillowed on his arms or slouching back in his seat, gazing at the sky outside. Chouji always had a bag of snacks opened on his desk which always crinkled at the most inopportune moments. Iruka and Mizuki had tried to curb them a little, flicking sticks of chalk at signs of misbehaviour but by the second week, Ino noticed that they'd had to replace the box of chalk because it was running so low.

Even though they weren't great students, they weren't the worst troublemakers either. That title went to Kiba and Naruto, without a doubt.

Scarcely, an hour went by unless Mizuki was snapping off Naruto's name sharply or Iruka was telling both boys to focus. The boys mostly liked egging each other on and playing pranks, which sometimes Ino had to admit were pretty funny. They also liked interrupting the teachers, especially in history, to learn about what they wanted to know. Iruka would be telling the class about the tales of Hashirama growing the trees around the village and dog-boy would pipe up (without raising his hand, even!) because he wanted to hear about "the wars, the fighting, y'know! Who cares about stupid trees?!"

Konoha, actually. The Founders had picked very good and fertile land to start the village on. The soil was rich, the Naka river ran through it, and the area was big enough to accommodate the different clans and still have room for more people. The dilemma was, that although one side of the village was bordered by the mountain face, and thus well protected, the surrounding valley area was mostly open field and shrubbery – verdant but low lying. And so Hashirama had made a thick forest of trees surround the village for miles and miles to obscure its location, essential in keeping its citizens safe.

It was scary what some kekkai genkai could do, Ino thought. Most clans kept their talents secret from the civilians, even those that managed to pass the entrance exam to attend the Academy for formal education. Sometimes it was unavoidable – there were so many Uchiha that it was impossible not to notice if some of their Military Police members had swirling red eyes after an arrest and the Hyuuga were hardly subtle with their bulging veins. Likewise you never saw an Inuzuka without their ninken and if you did it was a huge faux-pas to ask. But even those kekkai genkai were not really talked about, beyond the "look, that's a little odd", so it was pretty unlikely civilians knew that the Sharingan could copy techniques and the Byakugan could see past solid objects. They probably thought Inuzuka's were just a little too crazy about dogs.

Which, looking at Kiba, she could understand why they might think that.

Even the tale of Hashirama growing trees was never expressly called a kekkai genkai. It was never given a name, not at this level of security, where any child with some semblance of potential, and any parent who wanted a formal education for them, could access. The way it was told made it sound less like an impressive power and more like a fantastical story. Easy to forget that the founding of Konoha was fairly recent and the size and proliferation of the thick forests that spread far beyond the village walls had not been there before that.

The magnitude that any kekkai genkai could achieve, not just the Wood-release, would cause panic amongst the population. Keeping it a secret wasn't a hard and fast rule, but it was an unspoken bit of information that most weren't privy to unless they either came from a ninja family or had a hitai-ate. It was one thing to know that ninja were stealthy and sneaky but another to know that there was not just one person, but a whole clan, who had the ability to make the shadows their own. She imagined that Akimichi business might go down if the unsuspecting civilians realised the pretty waitress who brought them their drinks could knock them down like sticks. As a whole, Ino thought their clans got underrated a lot of the time.

Sure, the Senju were the ones with the hat. The Uchiha owned the police. The Hyuuga did whatever noble clans did…probably ANBU or something super secret. But it was the Akimichi's who fed their bellies, who produced most of the ration bars, whose farms in the Land of Fire brought in the fresh produce and whose contacts supplied the village and had done since the founding. The Nara were a cornerstone in R&D and medicines, even though most of the well-known members were part of the forces. Ino's cold medicine she'd taken last winter had the Nara symbol on the label. The Yamanakas ran the flower shop, yeah. But the compound was full of different greenhouses, with different coloured glass for different growing conditions, several underground plant nurseries for some of the more tricky plants and flowers. Less for food consumption and more for medicinal or more nefarious purposes.

The Ino-Shika-Cho didn't have any bloodline abilities, although sometimes other clans confused them as having such and they were happy to let them continue thinking that was true. They did, however, have their secret techniques. If anything, this just made them that much more secretive about it. The other clans had their abilities locked into their blood, they didn't have such security. The reality was that although the Ino-Shika-Cho had developed techniques they had strong affinities for, it wasn't beyond imagination that someone completely unrelated could pick up the ninjutsu, at least that was what Inojirou-jii had told her about the Yamanaka secret techniques. It was for this reason that none of their techniques were written down. You had to be taught by a clan member, it wasn't something you could pick up from a scroll.

She had already started her lessons at home – not with Dad, but with Inojirou-jii. If it was with her Dad they probably would have been a lot more fun and maybe ice cream involved, if she pouted at him long enough. Her grandfather, on the other hand, on top of taking over her morning exercises most days, now also made her do clan training with him before bed.

The Yamanaka techniques, as far as Ino could understand it, meant that she would be able to do cool stuff like read people's minds!

Every day, after school and kunoichi lessons and dinner, Dad would walk her through the gardens and past the greenhouses in the compound to Inojirou-jii's house. This was a two-story home, built with rich dark wood, slightly above ground and overlooking a well-tended courtyard of soft mosses and a trickling water feature. It was one of the grandest looking homes in the compound, befitting of an ex-clan head.

She called him her grandfather, and her Dad encouraged it, even though he was less of her Dad's father and more like his uncle. He didn't dress like his house or like a previous clan head though. He was old and crotchety, with liver spots marking his face and very wrinkly. He wore mostly dark colours and frowned at anything nicer looking than a potato sack. And he was grouchy as he looked.

Dad, the traitor, would pat her on the head and nudge her towards the door before he was gone silently, a few leaves floating to the ground in his wake. Ino didn't like these lessons for several reasons. One, was that Inojirou-jii was very serious and grumpy. Two, was that it meant less time doing other fun things like drawing or matching new outfits or checking on her flowers. Three, was that it meant Daddy was too busy to train her instead.

"Well, what are you daydreaming out here for?" Inojirou-jii huffed, his pipe present as ever in his mouth, smoke curling away. "Get in here."

"Coming!" Ino said shrilly, concealing a grin at his wince. She toed her shoes off, and set them down in the entryway, next to a set of much larger black sandals. The other reason was that he wouldn't let her do anything but meditation. For two hours! That was how long she had to sit, and concentrate in silence, whilst the old man sipped tea! She hoped Dad wasn't paying him for this because this was clearly a scam.

The inside of the house was more modern, compared to the traditional look of the exterior. There was a tea room that they passed, separated from the hall by partitions and a set of stairs that led up to the first floor. Past that was a door that led into the kitchen and then the hallway transitioned into a room Inojirou-jii had decided they would have their training in – a large open-plan space with a low table and a few seat cushions.

When Ino had first started, she'd make the mistake of sitting there. Now? Ino lowered herself to the tatami mats on the floor, not bothering to even try for a softer cushion, her feet tucked beneath her so that her knees were still pressed together. Much to her annoyance, the old guy already had his bitter tea ready and a tin of tobacco laid out on the table. The pungent smell had been awful when she'd first started. It was still very strong now, but not as disgusting after several weeks of exposure and she wasn't sure if the fact that it didn't bother her anymore was good or not.

At Inojirou-jii's raised eyebrow, Ino closed her eyes and sank back into the familiar state of meditation.

It was dark in her head, like an empty breath that expanded without thought. She could feel the weight of her body, resting on her ankle joints and shins. The rough texture of woven tatami mats on the skin on the tops of her feet. The strain in the calf muscles to keep the weight of her body evenly spread. She could feel the flat of her palms warm against the tops of her thighs, where her hands were loosely resting. There was a dip in her spine from keeping her back straight and an ache in her shoulder blades that came with correcting bad posture. She could feel the tension releasing in her neck, and each individual facial feature: the blood pulsing behind her still eyelids, the curve of her nose, the dryness of her lips, the way sound was muffled by the walls of the house before it reached her ears.

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

There was so much open space around her body, a vacuum of nothingness apart from the prickle of the mats on the floor against her feet to anchor her. She focused on her breathing, and listened. It was quiet and muffled for a moment. And then, beyond the thick walls, she could make out the trickle of the fountain, a slow soft sound that instinctively made her lick her lips.

"Focus."

She did, thinking of the gardens beyond the courtyard, the lush greens and reds and browns of many shades and shapes. Birdsong, she could hear birdsong. Something high and fluttery and nonsensical, a sound that swooped and twisted. Beyond that, a slamming door. Someone yelling "good night", the clank of metal and ceramics as dishes were cleared. Squeaky cart wheels travelling down the roads away from the merchant district – _"what's the total for the-"_

"Draw back."

She focused inwards, away from the streets beyond the compound, retreating back past the slamming door and the different greenhouses. Past the bird that sang, she left its melody where it was and followed the path back to the courtyard, back through the house, and the smell of tobacco and strong tea and the breath that blossomed in her chest

\- and curled back in on itself.

"Inhale."

Her heart beat was steady, a loud drum beat that shook the ribs in her chest.

"Exhale."

Behind her eyelids, the world was dark. She drew her gaze inwards. There was nothing but encompassing darkness there. Apart of her wanted to reach out to touch it, but she knew instinctively that it would slip through her fingers like ink. For what felt like hours, she let herself rest there, floating and weightless.

And then, just as she thought she might start retreating again, something caught her attention at the corner of her senses. She moved closer to it. It was a small lilac, round object – not regular or smooth but she knew it was naturally rough in places as she examined it. There were others too, scattered around her as far as she could make out although they had not been there before, little drops of light against black. She wanted to reach out for them, but she didn't exactly have a body here.

Well, it was her mind, wasn't it? There was no harm in trying.

It was a lot harder than she thought, it turned out. When Inojirou-jii finally called a stop to her meditation, she'd only just managed begin to form the shape of her fingers, that would move before an idea of direction could coalesce, and didn't look as close to her real fingers as she would like, so it was more than a little strange. The little violet shapes hadn't done much more than pulse when she tried to grip them with the weird fingers she'd made, and apart from the light show did nothing else.

Ino blinked back the dark spots and opened her eyes to see her grandfather watching her expression shrewdly, eyes narrowed over the top of the tea cup he was sipping.

"Jii-san?" The room was warmer than she remembered, the curling musk of tobacco smoke drifting upwards towards the ceiling.

He placed the cup onto the table top with smooth movements, practiced from years of habit. "I see you've found it at last."

"There were these – " She thought back to the strange little shapes she'd seen – only she had had no eyes to see with in that place. " – seeds?" It was the only thing she'd seen like it before, a hard exterior shell covering what she knew to be something living inside.

He made a dismissing noise, and snorted. "Memories, girl." The dim light in the room made his face looked shadowed and withered. "They glowed, yes?"

Ino nodded. Was that –

"Chakra." He said, rising from his seat and motioning her to do the same. "Yamanaka embed our chakra into our memories from birth." His expression darkened. "It's why the most dangerous place to fight us is in our minds."

She shook her legs out absentmindedly, shaking the chasing pain of pins and needles away from her legs as she did after every meditation. "Jii-san, why is – " She frowned as she followed him out the room, trying to think of a better way to ask her question. "apart from the memories, my mind is really… empty." Dark. She wasn't sure what she had thought her mind might look like but she had always expected it to be pretty or super strong although she wasn't sure what that would look like either. Her headspace was startlingly void.

There was an odd huff of sound. Ino lifted her head to stare at the old man in front of her. He was – the sound morphed into a strange cross between a croak and a wheeze – laughing?

"Empty!" He chuckled in between laughter. For a moment, Ino wondered if she should feel concerned that the ancient elder would crack a rib and keel over. It would certainly serve him right for laughing at her… empty-headedness, her cheeks flushed.

Dad was waiting for her at the door, one brow quirked as he looked between them both. "Something funny?" He asked curiously as she put her shoes on.

Ino pursed her lips and glared at the old guy and hoped he got the message.

Inojirou-jii ignored her and snorted again. "Just your child again, boy." After a moment, he took a deep breath, wrinkled face smoothing back to his usual default grumpy expression. "You can ask your questions tomorrow, Ino." And with that, the door slammed firmly in their faces.

Dad turned to look at her, "I take it training went well, then?"

She shrugged. "I saw my memories" She offered as they made their way through the compound back to the flower shop and home.

He made an interested sound, "That's pretty quick progress." They past the old orchard where a blackbird was tending her nest, eying them warily.

"Mmm," Ino looked back down to her hand, imagining her fingers closing around that little purple seed again. "I tried to make my body appear in my head, but I only got as far as my knuckles." She wiggled the digits in front of her, watching the way the skin and joints moved.

"Don't be too discouraged, it's pretty impressive that you've even thought to start doing that," They circled around the greenhouses, turning to head towards the back of the house. Dad ruffled her hair, with a fond smile. "Start at your limbs, your hands and feet, and work upwards. Leave your head until last, it takes a while to get right." Which made sense considering you couldn't see your own face unless you were looking at a reflection.

They made their way inside and Dad told her to get ready for bed. Minoru had already gone home after dinner, but the drying rack was empty of the dishes he and Dad had both forced her to do and the rest of the kitchen looked pristine. Ino thought it was silly that Minoru insisted he was their neighbour and didn't just live with them. It wasn't like the teenager wasn't over most mornings he had off anyways, snarking back and forth with her and, occasionally, Dad when he joined them. There was a spare room across the hall too, so, really, she didn't see why not.

In the morning, she was outside once more with Inojirou-jii doing stretches. She was in a pair of old shorts and a ratty t-shirt, having since learnt wearing nice things would just mean more opportunities for Minoru and Dad to make her do more chores. Another case of two boys ganging up on a girl, she huffed.

Inojirou-jii did as he said and answered her questions about the previous nights meditation sessions, as he corrected her posture and sighed at her inevitable slip-ups. After the next few weeks of clan training and peppering him with questions the morning after, Ino thought she had a decent grip on what weird things Yamanaka minds, and her's in particular, did.

The chakra in her lilac memory-seeds helped make sure that she'd be able to recall them accurately later. Most shinobi in active service could recall details from missions that lasted several weeks, or even months sometimes, which was really important when it came to writing up mission reports for the Tower. Even in the Academy, Iruka and Mizuki had started teaching the class to exercise recall, mostly disguised as games. Ino wasn't really better than anyone else at the games. Although she was good at noticing the details in them, it didn't mean she could always recall what it was she'd noticed. The old man had swatted the back of her head in response when she'd told him that.

First of all, there was a barrier of chakra protecting the memory. To actually recall the memory, she would have to first find it (and here Ino thought back with more than a little horror to the veritable sea of memory-seeds) and then she had to peel away the barrier. The same barrier that kept the memory from eroding at the edges with time. So then, she'd have to re-apply the barrier too, once she was done. Not only that, but every memory started off as a short-term memory that drifted in her head before finally resting amongst the other chakra-protected memories where the shell would form around it. What she thought she had "forgotten" was usually because either other thoughts were crowded in front of the memory so she couldn't focus on it, or that it was already behind a chakra barrier that prevented access.

Being a Yamanaka meant that the formation of the chakra barriers was instinctive and all she needed was some time to ensure that the memories were properly moved from temporary to chakra protected and anchored. It was a purely passive process. Others would have to expend a lot of energy and time to train their mind to do it quickly and correctly without corrupting the memory, and even then it would never be as automatic as a Yamanaka. Whilst preserving memories was a passive process, accessing it was not. Inojirou-jii said he wouldn't teach her how to do that until Dad gave his permission. It was an apparently delicate thing to do, peeling back the chakra coat to examine the memory inside without tearing it or damaging the emotions it was attached to. There were so many ways it could go wrong. Once they'd trained enough though, he said it would be as easy as opening a book.

Which made Ino think his mindscape might have been a library or something – but maybe that was what he _wanted_ her to think! The reason why Ino's was dark and blank was also explained as being because she had no training yet. She hadn't learnt to fortify and organize her mind – something that also explained how someone would navigate the amount of memories the average Yamanaka must have. Someone as old as Inojirou-jii must have had enough to make her sea of memory-seeds look like a little teaspoon.

Most of her questions were answered in much the same way, that she was still too young to learn how to do this or that she wasn't ready. She wasn't allowed to meditate alone on the memory-seeds in case she accidentally damaged herself or by expanding her senses without someone watching her, because apparently, she could get _lost outside her body._ Forget the horror stories Kiba told at school, she only had to ask her grandfather to get a real version. The only thing the old guy had consented to was to continue constructing her body in her headspace until it was complete.

On that front, there was at least some progress. Sometimes when she was bored at school – but unwilling to make Iruka think she was anything like Shikamaru or Chouji by putting her head on the desk or being disruptive – she would drop into her headspace and work on forming her body. With each session, she would find the void a little faster and drop into it a little smoother. The shape would be easier to form too. So far, she could manage to make up to her wrists fairly easily and almost instantaneously when she found the right space in her mind. The shape of her toes and feet and ankles were coming along too, although they took a little more effort to form. Ino was sure that she'd be able to make her body up to her knees, and her arms up to shoulders, by the time second year came around if she kept at it.

When she wasn't zoning off to meditate in class, she was turning to whisper to Sakura. Originally, Ino hadn't known what to make of the shy girl. As much as Nao had been a great seat mate and a nice friend, it was obvious that the purple haired girl was much closer to Suzu and some of the other girls in class 1-B. Akari and Yui, as the only ones who didn't actually want to become ninjas were nice too, but mostly stuck together and Ichika had since abandoned their circle to roughhouse with the boys at lunchtime. Sakura was pretty quiet in comparison to all of them, but when she did offer something to the conversation, Ino found she was pretty fun despite that. Besides, pink hair was so cool!

They'd ended up sat next to each other in their etiquette classes since they'd both been assigned to class C with a bunch of girls mostly in the year above, whilst the other girls were in D. As the youngest in the class they'd wordlessly assumed seats beside each other.

The other girl, beyond her pink hair, was kind of interesting. Sakura's parents had wanted her to join the Academy to get some formal education, since most civilian kids were either home-schooled or apprenticed, but didn't want her to actually become a kunoichi. The girl herself was on the fence about it all. She worked hard to do well in classes and was always quick to raise her hand, even in a class full of glaring older girls, which Ino was more than a little awed by. However, she didn't particularly have an opinion on joining the ninja forces, beyond the fact that ninjutsu seemed flashy and awesome.

Ino was working on it. Class 1-A had thirty children, of which a majority were boys. There were only ten girls in the class, including herself. And only Hinata, Nao and Ichika showed signs of even wanting to become ninja. Four out of ten. When every single boy there was hollering about being the next super-nin.

And besides, wouldn't it be cool if Hinata, Ichika, Sakura and Ino ended up on a genin team together? Okay, she knew the chances of a four-man (woman!) cell were zero, but it would be so awesome to have a girl-only kick-ass squad! And if their squad leader was a kunoichi as cool as Tsunade or even Suzume-sensei? Ino would probably explode from the sheer awesomeness of it all!

Kunoichi classes took place three times a week, after their initial testing. Mondays were reserved for etiquette (which was basically all the stuff that taught them to act super posh or put makeup on or look at behaviour at the Daimyo's court) and instruments. Wednesdays were for flower arranging and infiltration techniques, including an in depth look at what roles they could disguise themselves as in different nations, even ones Konoha was allied with. Fridays were for embroidery and sewing and other more domestic skills.

Mondays weren't her favourite, even if she got to sit next to her new friend Sakura. Nao had introduced them all to her big sister Ami and the older girl's circle of friends. Ami was a plain-looking purple haired girl, with a look on her face that was constantly smug. The Monday after they'd been introduced in the playground, Ami and her gang had walked right up to Sakura during kunoichi class, an expectant look on her face as she towered a full head over Ino's shy friend.

Ino was too far away to hear what the conversation was but she could see Sakura shaking, her green eyes darting to the ground as Ami's smirk got more and more predatory with glee. She grabbed the make-up supplies from the box as fast as she could and hurried back to the corner of the hall that she'd left Sakura at. She only made it back in time to catch the tail-end of the conversation, but what she heard was enough to make her stomp up angrily.

"…so ugly even makeup can't help you, Forehead-girl!" Nao's older sister sneered. Sakura's eyes were suspiciously wet beneath her bangs, thick over her face.

Ino wrenched her arm back and the plastic and paper flower snapped forwards into the idiot's open mouth. Ami gasped and choked, eyes bulging as Ino marched right up to the taller girl. She grabbed a fistful of the girl's dress even as her gang reared back in shock.

"Sakura is way prettier inside and out then you could ever be, you ugly hippo!" She snarled, shoving the girl back. "You're just jealous because she's smarter and prettier than you!"

The older girl's eyes narrowed and she wrenched herself out of Ino's grip, opening her mouth to retort.

Ino took a step back but smoothed out her creaseless skirt without breaking eye contact. "By the way, that flower was poisonous." She smirked as Ami made a squawking sound and retreated with her cronies to lick their wounds and splutter out paper petals. She turned back to face Sakura who was staring with wide eyes.

Ino grinned, "It was a fake flower, don't worry!" She walked forwards to bump shoulders with the other girl. "Can't believe Ami fell for it!" Sakura fiddled with her fringe and gave her a watery smile in thanks.

Ami was the reason Nao no longer sat next to her in their normal classes anymore. Nao had completely avoided looking in her direction the next morning in class and didn't even sit next to her. She took Sakura's seat with Akari and Yui instead and began whispering to them the moment she sat down, until all three of the girls were whispering and glancing back at her, only to giggle and start whispering again. Ino felt a little mystified at first and clearly, Sakura felt the same way when she saw her seat was taken, pausing in the doorway until she spotted the empty seat by Ino. One glance at Nao, showed the girl was taking Sakura's move next to Ino as a personal slight and the purple-haired girl didn't let up on the glaring until lunch. Even though it was Nao herself who had forced Sakura to move.

Well, it turned out Sakura was a better seat partner anyways. The girl's notes were always amazing and Ino actually felt like working in pairs was splitting the work between two people equally, unlike Nao's version of working together. At lunch, when the two girls had tried to take their usual spots under the tree, Nao, Akari, Yui and Suzu had taken to spreading their bentos over every available patch of ground, claiming they needed the space.

"There's still room," Nao smiled innocently, pointing at a bank of mud and wet grass a few feet away. "You two can sit there."

Sakura shifted uneasily by her side. Ino scowled. "It's muddy over there, and you don't need all that space here."

The purple haired girl sniffed, "Well, I like to lay my bento out properly to eat." And then rolled her eyes in a way that made Ino's blood boil. "Is the ground to dirty for you, Ino? Too disgusting for a clan kid?" She cooed.

"Yeah," Suzu piped in.

Ino gave them both the coldest look she could manage. "That has nothing to do with this. We're asking to sit on the ground next to you, not in a puddle. We're supposed to be friends."

Nao made the ugliest face Ino had ever seen on the girl. "Friends?" Her voice was shrill and scornful. "Do friends attack each other's family? Try and poison them?"

"I threw a fake flower at her, Nao." Ino glared, hands jolting to her waist. "I didn't attack her, she was the one bullying Sakura."

Her former seat mate's mouth tilted into a sly grin. "Oh," She said archly, "You mean _Forehead-girl?"_

"Sakura," Ino growled, interrupting before Nao could be even worse. "is our friend. You don't call friends names."

" _Your_ friend." She said snidely.

It did hurt a little, Ino had to admit. Nao was her first friend outside of her cousins that Ino had made. They'd bonded over how cool being a kunoichi was and swapped Princess Gale comics over the weekends.

"My friend." Ino echoed, firmly. "Because I'm not friends with," She picked the worst word that she'd ever heard out of Minoru's mouth, anger churning in her stomach, _"mean bitches."_

There was an audible gasp amongst the other six year olds at the swear word and even Nao's eyes widened in shock. With that, Ino slipped her hand into Sakura's and tugged the other girl away.

"And your teacher wants a word with me?" Ino ignored her dad's unamused tone in favour of sending Sakura a wave as the other girl left the Academy grounds with her parents. The pink haired girl beamed back happily and shot her a quick wave as she left.

"Ino." Satisfied, she turned round to face Dad's stiff expression. In retrospect, she probably should have tugged him away from Shikamaru and Chouji's parents before telling him Iruka was going to come up to talk to him. A "word" sounded so ominous when phrased that way, didn't it?

"I made a new friend!" Ino said, instead, surreptitiously ignoring curious glances from the boys.

Dad did not look impressed. "And that's what Iruka wants to talk to me about?"

She shrugged, running her fingers over the daisy chain necklaces she'd made at lunch with her new best friend. Sakura was really smart, like genius level, Ino thought. Even coming from a civilian background hadn't stopped her from scoring higher than most of the class in the test. And she was interested in Princess Gale too and also had a cupcake eraser, that basically meant they were destined to be best friends! Whereas, Nao… she scowled. "Nao's not allowed back to our house, ever."

At her declaration, Iruka approached the group, seeming to sense that he was going to be on the receiving end of the entire Ino-Shika-Cho if he wanted to say anything against Inoichi's daughter. Despite looking a little intimidated, the chunin still approached until he was met with six stares.

"Yamanaka-san, Nara-san, Akamichi-san," He greeted, nodding his head.

"Umino-san," Dad said, "Ino mentioned you wanted a word."

Iruka nodded shortly, glancing unsurely at the other four in the semi-circle who made no move to leave before sighing. "Ah, yes, there was a bit of an incident between Ino-chan and another classmate at lunch break today."

Ino twitched as five pairs of eyes landed on her, her Dad's the heaviest.

"It ended with Ino-chan swearing at the other girl," He shifted his weight to his other foot, and Ino wondered if he was aware he'd just turned Dad's thousand-yard stare into a laser of blistering focus of which she was the recipient. The boys were openly gaping at her, well Chouji was. Shikamaru had straightened, which from a Nara was practically the same thing. Iruka continued, "which is fine, if that's permissible at home, but at school we discourage inappropriate language," ending with a stern look directed at her.

Ino's brow furrowed and she bit her lip, frustratedly. It wasn't fair that she'd got in trouble for calling Nao a bad name. It wasn't like Nao hadn't called Sakura names, although admittedly she had used a word she'd known was bad. So fine, she got in trouble for swearing. But Iruka hadn't even spoken to Nao's parents about being rude and the bully hadn't even gotten more than a bit of a telling off from Iruka. Ino had to help Iruka tidy the classroom after lessons for the next week on the days she had off from Suzume's classes as punishment!

Dad seemed to have spotted the angry tears threatening to well up because he put his hand down to sit on her shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze before speaking to Iruka. She didn't pay attention to the rest of the conversation, focusing on biting her lip and willing herself not to cry.

The walk back was quiet and Ino buried her face in her dad's neck, face burning as it dampened beneath her cheeks. They split off from Shikamaru and Chouji before they usually did, walking in a different direction. Finally, after a few minutes of walking Dad slowed to a stop and set her down on a bench off the street. Ino looked around blearily, and rubbed her eyes. Now that they had stopped she could pick up a dumpling stand across the road and the comic store a few numbers down. Behind her was the ice cream stand that Dad knew was her favourite.

After a moment, he returned with two cones, one strawberry and one vanilla, handing her the pink one. Ino stared at the dessert for a moment, before hunger won out and she lifted it to her mouth.

"Want to tell me the what happened?"

She busied herself with a large lick of ice cream, filling her mouth and waiting for it to melt as her tongue numbed. Dad was going to keep pressing until he got the full story, she knew. There was a reason he was working in T&I after all. Reluctantly, she tilted the cone away from her face. "Ami was being really mean to Sakura, she's been bullying her."

Dad made a considering noise, face neutral. His interrogating face, probably. "Ami?"

"Nao's sister." Ino grunted and then ate some more of her dessert. And she had thought having a sibling must have been really cool. Boy, was she wrong. "I didn't know that she was doing that before yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?"

"Ami was being horrible to Sakura at Suzume-sensei's class." She glared at the ice cream threatening to drip down the cone and licked at it sharply. "I threw a flower in her mouth and told her it was poisonous, except it wasn't even a real flower. I'm not stupid!" It probably wasn't what Minoru had in mind when she'd asked him about throwing kunai, but she figured he'd be proud anyways.

"And, did you tell Nao that the flower was fake?"

"Yeah, and she didn't believe me!" Ino whirled to face her Dad, suddenly furious. "She didn't say anything to me all morning and even switched seats, and then! At lunch she made everyone spread out their stuff so we didn't have anywhere to sit apart from in the mud and then acted really mean!" She took a chomp out of the cone, "She called us names, so I called her one back and said she wasn't my friend anymore." She chewed on the crispy pastry angrily. "She deserved it."

Dad let out a long-suffering sigh, much like Iruka had when he'd let her tell her side of the story after Nao and Suzu had tattled on her. "Well," He said finally, "I'm proud of you defending what you think is right," He ruffled her hair with a wry grin. The ends of it were starting to get a bit long now, Ino noticed, it was almost to her shoulder blades now. And then, Dad gave her a stern look – his parenting look, Minoru dubbed it. "But no more swearing at school please, no matter what someone else says to you."

Ino nodded sheepishly. When they got back home, Dad made her go straight to her room instead of letting her tend to her flowers like she usually did and from her bed she could hear Dad scolding Minoru for swearing. Which meant, she realised with a sigh, that he was going to lecture her tomorrow once Dad was at work. Instead of moping for much longer, she cleared her room of anything Nao related, a pen she had borrowed, a doodle she had kept, and dumped them in a shoebox to be thrown into the bottom of her wardrobe never to be seen again – or the trash, she hadn't decided yet.

* * *

 **A/N:** Last upload for a few weeks! Going on a temporary hiatus or I won't get any work done before exams! See you when I'm back!


	3. Academy Arc 3

**ACADEMY ARC 3**

* * *

Over the few months since the Not-Poison Incident, things had been slowly escalating. The Miura sisters had wrangled a number of the other girls into their respective posses and seemed bent on getting their revenge. Where Ami seemed to be gunning for Sakura at every turn, Nao was the one focused on Ino. At least her best friend got a break from not being in the same class, whereas Ino's self-proclaimed nemesis was more than happy to be a constant bother. Everywhere Ino turned there was another one of them, smirking and whispering behind their hands, and she didn't even have to hear them to know they were saying something mean. It was infuriating. It started with pointed interruptions in class whenever either girl went to say something, and then things started going missing from their bags whenever they went out to lunch. In response, Sakura and Ino bought matching locks for their backpacks after her favourite cupcake eraser had disappeared. The thievery stopped, but new confrontations began.

Sakura and Ino had taken to going everywhere together, even the bathrooms, because they never knew just when the sisters would pop out. Instead of spending their breaks with the circle under the tree, they now sat on the opposite side of the playground by the fence where the best daisies grew to eat lunch. They'd not been completely successful in avoiding trouble, of course.

Lunchtimes saw their daisy-chain making sessions interrupted by groups of the sisters' cronies kicking pebbles and dirt in their direction on their way past and suddenly their out-of-the-way spot was a lot less nice to sit in, especially when it also meant out-of-sight. They'd tried migrating to the swings instead for a while, but this just meant they had to deal with the bullies shoving them off the swings when they weren't paying careful attention. It was like a game of chicken, where instead of daring each other to run in front of oncoming carts, the bullies would make a game of trying to catch them off guard to send them flying. So, then they'd sat themselves next to the Hyuuga heiress at the girl's usual bench by the entranceway.

Sakura was reluctant at first, unsure if the princess of the usually uptight clan would even allow them to sit, but Ino dragged her timid friend up and got the two well acquainted. Hinata was even shyer than Sakura could be sometimes, and it made Ino proud when Sakura seemed to recognize this and instinctively included the stuttering Hime into their conversations. The pink haired girl seemed to relax a little at the realisation that the heiress wasn't going to look down on her for her clan-less parentage and, by their second lunchtime, all three had happily resolved to make this their new thing.

Besides, Ino beamed at the Byakugan user, Hinata's doujutsu was terribly useful in dodging their bullies at breaktime.

It was only after they'd sensed defeat at lunch, that Nao had started the trend of sabotaging them during Taijutsu lessons. In first year, instead of katas, the Academy focused on building strength, stamina and flexibility. This involved lots of stretching and running and obstacle courses. All Ino wanted to do was concentrate on running the obstacle courses, but now she and Sakura had to contend with the other girls pulling their hair or trying to trip them. It was lucky most of the girls had lower stamina otherwise they might have had a lot more trouble.

Ino and Sakura were fairly safe during stretching, where Iruka and Mizuki gathered the class together and watched over the group carefully to reduce the chances of anyone pulling a muscle. Running was usually okay too, since Nao and the other girls often lagged behind and Ino could tug Sakura into the middle of the pack with their other classmates around them as Hinata shot them both worried looks.

It was the obstacle course that could be a real pain.

This afternoon, Yui had already made Ino trip once, scraping her knee against the rough dirt. Iruka had called out in alarm, but she gritted her teeth and pulled herself up and back into a jog again. The civilian girl was looking nervous as she caught up, looking this way and that, and making a wide berth between them. Ino refused to even glance her way and put on a burst of speed to catch up with the leading group.

Her eyes narrowed as she caught the figure of Sakura running up ahead. She'd told the other girl to keep going without her and that she would catch up, but now Sakura was being boxed in up ahead by Akari and another girl. Every time her friend sped up, her bullies would too, moving in closer so she was trapped to either side. Ino's knees stung from where she'd fallen on them, and there was a little too much space between her and the three girls ahead. She avoided looking down at her too-warm knee, instead trying to focus on whatever Akari seemed to be planning. Her Dad was probably going to ask about that later, Minoru too – protective chickens the both of them.

The tyre swing was coming up - Ino watched the group nervously. It was a black rubber tyre suspended above a very muddy ditch by a length of rope attached to crossbeams. The aim of the obstacle was to time your leap from a platform at one side to get to another platform on the opposite bank. This involved matching your speed with the swing of the tyre so that you landed with your feet in the ring, to get safely across. Everyone had fallen in at least once in the class, so it wasn't too embarrassing, but it made the rest of the course really difficult to complete with slippery mud everywhere. Miss the timing of it, or pace your run wrong, or jump for it too weakly and you'd land straight in the ditch, mud up to your waist.

Or -Ino thought worriedly as the trio ahead neared the obstacle - if someone pushed you.

The girls were lagging a little behind Sakura, their stamina no match for a girl that actually gave one-hundred percent to everything she did, but it wasn't quite enough. Her pink haired best friend was still in arms reach of the bullies. "Sakura-!" She called out in warning.

Sakura's face screwed up in anger, clearly having had enough of her tail. Her face suddenly donned a hard glare. "SHANNARO!" Ino blinked. The yell was loud enough that birds broke out of the nearby trees as Sakura pulled up and ahead of the two startled girls and leaped for the tyre swing. In no time at all, she was across and running on, past even Sasuke leading the head group, leaving the other two to fumble for momentum.

Ino grinned. Yeah, Sakura was really cool.

She wasn't going to fall behind either.

/|\

Now that the school year was in full swing, Dad was taking up a lot more responsibilities. When he was home, he was spending more time in his office than in his bed asleep, and more time in either of those places than with her at all.

Her neatly planned days, which used to start with breakfast with Dad and Minoru and grumpy Inojirou-jii, now missed a person entirely. At the start of the school year, Dad had already sat her down to explain that her grandfather would be taking over her morning exercises because he had to head in to work early, but now, she wasn't even awake when he left in the mornings. Minoru would feed her breakfast when he was off-duty and drop her off at school, but when he was away from the village on missions it was Inojirou-jii she had to contend with.

The old man seemed to take joy in making her temper explode. His latest thing was to click his tongue or tap his foot at the dining table – not enough to be regular or to discern a pattern – but enough that it made her want to scream! And then he would say she needed to learn better self-control! Oooh, that man!

He would do it during their stretches, do it while she was scoffing down his awful cooking, even as she was tying her shoes by the door. One time she'd forgotten her homework because she'd rushed out the house too fast, trying to get away from the ticking and the tapping and the whistling!

When she came home from classes, Dad was never home either. He used to greet her most evenings when she used to go out to play with her cousins, but now when she came home from school, the house was usually empty. On the one hand it was great, because it meant she could check on her garden and dance in her room and sing at the top of her voice and no one could say anything about it! She'd invited Sakura over a few times but the other girl had seemed a bit spooked at playing in the empty house and in the end they'd gone back to the Haruno's to play instead. On the other hand, it meant that it was kind of lonely when she got home and there was no one to talk to.

On days like that, Ino busied herself in the flower shop.

The shop itself was mostly manned by Etsuko and Genji, civilian Yamanakas, who mostly didn't mind if Ino got underfoot for a few hours. Mostly, she did the simple stuff, since she was a little too young to work the till, Etsuko had said with a kind laugh. She swept the floors, dusted the displays off and cleaned the surfaces. It seemed like every time she cleaned the place, more dust and soil would float by and all that work would be wasted. She could sweep the place thrice and still not have the shop clean!

Her favourite part about working in the shop though, was watching bouquets being made. Etsuko mostly ran the front shop, smiling warmly at customers and suggesting appropriate flowers for the occasion. Genji's domain was behind the counter. Apart from keeping inventory of the shop, he was also the one who made the bouquets.

You would think large hands shouldn't be able to make something so delicate, but the man was brilliant. Etsuko would send Ino through to him with a request and he would take the slip of paper from her hands and nudge her onto a stool by the work table with a fond roll of his eyes. There were rolls of pretty fabrics and glossy papers in the back workshop. Spools of coloured ribbons and wires and tapes lined the walls, next to gleaming shears and scissors and thin blades of assorted sizes and widths. Genji moved with quick, smooth movements; a flick of his wrist to de-thorn a prickly rose, a precise snap as the shears closed around the base of woodier stems, scissors gliding across coloured papers with a soft _shhhhhh_. Sometimes Ino liked to watch him move. Sometimes, she closed her eyes just to _listen._

The finished bouquets were always beautiful, no matter the tag attached to it. Clusters of baby's breath and daffodils, bursts of bright peonies and delicate forget-me-nots, tied together with soft satin ribbons.

Eventually the customers would filter out and business would slow and the shop would shut for the day. She would wave Genji and Etsuko goodbye and then make her way through the back into the house behind it. More often than not, Dad would still be working despite the fact that the sun was setting and she'd have dinner with Inojirou-jii (which usually meant burnt rice and very little seasoning to suit an old person's taste!) and if she was luckier, Minoru who could actually cook.

Ino wasn't sure what it was Dad was working on. Perhaps he'd been putting it off for a long time, waiting until she was busy with school, but it seemed like he hadn't been this busy until she started the Academy. Some nights, she'd wake to the sound of the floorboards creaking past her room on the way to the study. Other times she didn't hear anything at all.

He even worked on weekends now! It made Ino want to yell at him, because he hadn't taken her out to eat ice cream since that time she'd called Nao something rude. Or done any flower arranging together! Dad loved ikebana, and now that she had classes in it he should have been eager to strongarm her into practicing it, not busy with work!

She'd scarcely even heard him say the word "Flower," to her in a whole month, not that she liked the nickname, or anything.

Chouji's and Shikamaru's fathers were Dad's best friends, weren't they? She wondered if they knew anything about it. Or was it something they were working on together, the old Ino-Shika-Cho reunited? She was almost tempted to actually ask the boys for real. Almost.

That would require speaking to them, she frowned.

"Concentrate!"

"Yes, jii-san." She huffed a sigh. Ah, well, if it was something the war veterans Ino-Shika-Cho were working on together, she was sure they'd come out victorious!

/|\

The more time Ino spent with Sakura, the more she learned about the quiet girl. The truth was, Sakura wasn't actually that quiet. When it was just them in Sakura's bedroom, the girl was more than happy to chatter about this or that, comparing cute erasers their parents had bought them or defending which of the Princess Gale movies were the best. Sakura was firmly of the opinion that the third movie was the best, while Ino just plain preferred the mangas. It was something they had agreed to disagree on, but it was fun to argue about regardless.

One of the things her best friend prided herself on was her hair. And rightly so. Sakura's hair was a lovely shade of baby pink, exactly like the cherry blossoms she was named for, styled into a cute bob that hung around her shoulders. Ah, if only Ino had such pretty hair, she'd never stop styling it! The other girl took care of her hair routinely and carefully. Whenever she went over to the Haruno's for a sleepover, Sakura always ran a brush through her hair at least a hundred times before bed.

"It makes me feel…pretty." The other girl would say as she climbed under the covers, hair silken and soft.

And no matter how much Ino rushed to reassure her, the girl never seemed to believe it. Ino firmly believed in telling the truth - okay, well, that wasn't strictly true… but if there was one thing she refused to lie about: it was how someone looked.

Even objectively, Sakura was a pretty child. Her colouring, although not the most exotic, was eye catching. Delicate pink paired with clear green eyes, just looking at her reminded you of cherry blossom viewing in late spring. The Haruno's were a handsome looking couple too, so it wasn't as though her best friend would grow up to be ugly either.

But children could be mean sometimes, as Ino had discovered attending the Academy. Ami's nickname had spread throughout the school and though most were decent kids who didn't resort to name calling, it didn't mean that their eyes weren't drawn to the other girl's forehead even if they weren't trying to be rude. Sakura herself was keenly aware of it, Ino knew, pushing and tugging at her fringe constantly during the day to make sure not a hair was out of place. Even in kunoichi classes when they had to pin back their hair for makeup, the other girl would leave her fringe down until the last possible moment and, once Ino was finished, quickly smooth it out again.

Sakura's forehead wasn't even that big. And frankly, not even noticeable. Most were inclined to notice the girl's bright hair first than they were her hidden "fault". Honestly, it was just that she kept fidgeting with her hair that brought attention to it and since she kept it hidden, well, Ino assumed it just made other kids think it must be humongous. In turn, it only made them look more.

A vicious cycle.

She'd been pondering on the subject whilst out with Minoru one weekend. It was Akimichi Chouji's birthday the following week and, as heir to his clan, there was to be a party including most of the Yamanaka and Nara. Seven was the age most of the children got introduced to their parents' friends and associates, so it was an important birthday too. Any younger and they would be too young to understand what was going on, Minoru had explained nonchalantly, and reaching seven was a sign that they could start fending for themselves. It wasn't that long ago that children hadn't had the security of the village to protect themselves, after all.

Which was a really morbid thing to hold a party for, Ino thought.

Dad would be presenting something more ceremonial on behalf of the clan, but he'd not so subtly hinted that it would be a good gesture to present Chouji with something herself, heir to heir or whatever. So reluctantly, Minoru was out here with her on his day off, helping her find a present.

The issue, of course, was that Ino didn't really know Chouji that well, beyond 'I think he likes food'. That week, she'd been trying to keep an eye on the boy to see if there was anything she could deduce he liked or would appreciate. The conclusion she came to after observation was that the Akimichi heir was content if he had a snack in hand, and that his favourite thing to do (apart from the obvious) was hang out with Shikamaru. And it wasn't like she could tie up the lazy boy and present him at the ceremony gift-wrapped, Ino resisted the urge to snicker, although that would be hilarious.

She milled between stalls, keeping half an eye on Minoru doing some shopping himself, and tried to stay on track with the amount of pretty trinkets that grabbed her attention. There were baubles of different shapes and sizes, a stand selling an intricate and dainty selection of blown glass, sheets of silk that hung from rolls inside a stall and people calling their wares everywhere she looked.

They had been walking through the marketplace for the better part of the afternoon now and her feet were starting to tire. Ino was almost tempted into just buying him a gold necklace or something ornate and just be done with the whole thing, but Dad had said she should spend her allowance, not clan money, especially since the clan had the ornate and gold thing covered. Ino jingled her coin purse with a huff. She was a little reluctant to spend the money she had earned helping out around the house and the shop on someone she wasn't even friends with, but even more hesitant to turn up without something to the party.

And if she was going to gift something to Chouji, she might as well put some thought into it, even more especially if it was coming from her own purse. She was just about to turn to tell Minoru they should try another district when a stall caught her eye. Bento boxes…at least that's what she thought they were. There were ones with adorable little kitty faces, a puppy barking happily and even a cute bunny one that, Ino eyed it starrily, would go perfect with her pencil case!

"Ah, can I help you, young miss?" The stall owner was a young gangly looking man, not much older than Minoru, wringing his hands a little nervously.

"Ano," She started, tilting her head in a way that always made Daddy cave. "Mister, are these bento boxes?"

"Oh, right, yes." The man started, lifting up a thin black one to show her. "Very efficient for shinobi, there's a seal inside that makes the volume it can hold larger than it's physical capacities, perfect for storing rations for a ninja on the move, they come in various materials and sizes and I can personally customise the –" He paused his rambling of what was very clearly a rehearsed speech, blinking at the small child in dawning realization. His cheeks flushed pink.

"Mister, I'm not a shinobi yet!" Ino giggled. But they did sound kind of useful…especially for a boy who liked eating snacks in class… She gave the rabbit box a mournful look, before widening her eyes cutely at the man. "But I'm buying a present, can you make one that looks like a pencil case?"

The man stared at her for a moment, before recovering slowly. "- A pencil case…? I suppose that's doable." And, in a mutter she was probably not meant to hear, "basically the only business I've had anyways."

Ino scrunched her nose, reviewing all her observations of Chouji over the week. A plain pencil case would be pretty boring… what about… "Can you put a teddy bear on it?" Because, now that she thought of it, Chouji did kind of remind her of one. A roly poly kind of teddy bear. He was cute, not in the pretty way that Mizuki was, but like the one time Etsuko had brought her girlfriend's tiny puppy over and all the little thing had been able to do was mewl adorably. It made Ino want to squish Chouji's cheeks mostly.

The stall owner nodded, his curly brown hair bobbing with the movement. "Sure, I can do that. Umm…it'll take a few days," He murmured a few calculations under his breath. "That'll be one hundr-"

Ino turned the power of The Tilt and The Eyes up, "It's my friend's birthday!" She added cutely.

She practically grinned when the man wilted. With a slump to his shoulders he turned away for a moment before presenting another rack of goods before her. There were a few metal pieces of jewellery, simple, and a few other accessories. They were roughly made, without the finesse of an actual jeweller's stand, but looked sturdily built. Likely also targeted at shinobi then, especially since the metal had been dipped in something that reduced the shine. But what made Ino straighten was the wide satin ribbons draped along the rack between them. There were yellows and oranges, blues and purples, some patterned and some not.

"I'll throw in one of these, then," He gave her a searching look, probably aware of how easily he had caved. She resisted the urge to cackle. "But… the price will have to remain at one hundred and fifty ryo for the lot."

"The red one!" She pointed at the beautiful ribbon happily. She knew exactly just who would appreciate the colour. Huh, two problems solved at once! Ino was so clever! "Please, mister!"

"Those are just…" The man scratched his head, "fine." He sighed and untangled the ribbon.

"Thanks, nii-san!" He jolted as Ino tipped her coin purse out onto the table and watched the money she'd saved up clatter onto the wooden surface. Taking the ribbon from him, she pushed the pile of coins towards him. One hundred and fifty was pretty much all she had on her anyways. She watched as he counted the money into a tin. "You can send it to the Yamanaka Flower Shop once it's ready!"

"Ino!" She heard Minoru call above the din of the marketplace.

Securing the ribbon in her pocket with a skip to her step, Ino moved back towards where she'd last seen him, calling one last time over her shoulder to the young man at the stall. "You're in the wrong district if you want shinobi customers, by the way!" She waved back at his startled expression cheekily. "Bye!"

Sakura was going to be so pleased!

/|\

It was when Sakura said that Nao had told Haruno-san that her daughter had cheated to get her top mark that Ino had finally decided enough was enough. When she made it home from her best friend's house for dinner, she'd told Minoru (and Inojirou-jii by extension) all about what was happening in school angrily, gripping her chopsticks so hard she thought they might break.

Minoru had sighed, ignoring her grandfather's tutting as he leant on one elbow heavily on the table. "Brat, the Academy's not actually there just for fun, y'know?" Ino had spluttered in response, opening her mouth to retort. "You're shinobi-in-training, most of you anyways, just ignore the bint." He gave her a sympathetic shrug. "The Academy doesn't discourage bullying."

Ino had fumed in her seat, slamming her rice bowl down. She'd ignored Inojirou-jii's huff at another child with bad table manners. "That's not fair! I can't just let her get away with it!"

Minoru had said nothing, simply patted her on the head and risen to clear the dishes. Instead it was the old man who replied, smacking the back of her head.

"Ow!"

"No one's saying that!" He had snapped, also rising from his seat. "Yamanakas are to be stepped on by none." He took a long drag from his pipe and then turned to exit. "There are other things the Academy does discourage though." He called over his shoulder, deliberately mysterious, the old coot!

The grumpy man had given her a starting point at least. If the Academy could do nothing, especially when Ino had no proof that it was Nao and Ami behind all the incidents, then she'd just have to find some dirt on them that the Academy would punish them for and somehow get them to do it in front of the teachers. She relayed her plan that weekend to Sakura who had beamed, and that very Monday began their big sting operation to catch Nao and Ami in the act!

First, they'd asked Iruka for the teacher's rulebook which he'd been happy to lend to them as long as it didn't leave the classroom. Sakura had copied the rules (because she had the neatest writing) into her notebook. The issue was, they then discovered, that there was little the Academy did punish students for.

Being caught cheating in an exam Significant lack of attendance Intentional destruction of property Swearing _as Ino had discovered._ Blatant disrespect of authority Intent to do harm outside of sparring

Of course, most of these rules had the caveat that they had to be proven to a member of staff or been witnessed by one. And though neither Nao or her close friends Suzu, Akari and Yui were particularly clever, they were smart enough to avoid doing anything too obviously whilst the teachers were looking their way.

This changed nearly a month after Chouji's birthday.

They were running the obstacle course again. Ino was breathing hard, glad she'd thought to wear shorts today instead of the dungarees she'd originally decided on. It had rained last night, so while the ground and equipment were a little slick in places, at least there was a cool breeze blowing as she ran.

The obstacle course had a number of stages, likely designed to test different things, and although it was initially fun to crawl under a dirty net or balance on a long moving beam like a see-saw, the excitement quickly wore off after the first few days. The thirty pupils of Class 1-A were split into three groups of ten. Group one would start first and once most of that group had made it to the halfway mark, group two would begin, and so forth. This meant that there was always one group recovering while the other two ran.

At the start of the course, Mizuki would usher them into starting positions, before giving them a count down to begin.

This afternoon, Ino found herself standing alongside Kiba and Ito, with Ichika a paces away, getting ready to begin. The blonde girl rolled her shoulders once, twice and then lowered herself into a sprint-ready position. According to Iruka, her best time so far had been just over four minutes for the course, and, today, Ino was looking to beat that.

She kept getting close, but missing out by a few seconds, and she wasn't sure whether it was her breathing that was the problem, or her pacing, or her rhythm. As far as the rest of the class went, there was both faster and slower kids. Sasuke was the quickest, followed by either Shino or Rui depending on who was in better condition that day. Of the girl's Hinata was the quickest but Ino was quite happy to come in second right behind her. Still, the girls were lagging behind the boys, and she was adamant to change that soon.

"On your marks -"

Ino trained her eyes on the first obstacle.

"Get set – "

The crawl net wasn't the worst thing they could have started with.

"GO!"

Ino pushed off her heels, sprinting for the first obstacle and closing the distance as fast as she could push her pace, in order to keep enough stamina to last until the end. Almost immediately, Kiba was past her and kneeling at the start of the netting. She reached the obstacle just as the other boy was slipping under it, dropping to her knees, uncaring at the rough landing.

The net was made of wiry cord, thick but smooth, so that it didn't catch too much on their clothes and hair. She scrambled beneath it, knees following after her elbows, keeping her mouth shut to avoid getting a mouthful of dirt. The trickiest part of the obstacle wasn't the scrambling or the dirt, but the net itself, which draped around them loosely, but didn't allow them to rise above a crouched crawl. There was a little congestion up ahead where someone had clearly gotten stuck; so she circled around it – it would cut into her time a little but that was better than waiting for them to detangle themselves. Emerging from the end of the net, she broke into a run again.

Ahead, Kiba and Naruto were squabbling near the base of the next obstacle – a wooden ladder construct that was several feet across and even more feet high.

"Hah! I'm going to beat you this time, dog-breath!"

"Shut up, whiskers!"

Boys, honestly. They should save their breath for actually moving faster! With a delicate scoff, Ino closed the distance latching onto the first slightly wood-damp rung with one arm.

"Wha-hey!"

It was lucky they had smoothed these beams otherwise she'd definitely be getting an armful of splinters right about now. Once she had the first rung, the next five were considerably easier, until she was hauling herself over the top rung to begin her descent on the other side. Descending the Ladder was a lot more difficult, because now there were other people ascending on the other side. Ino inched to the left as she narrowly avoided Naruto's foot, feeling the edge of his ratty sneaker scrape her pinky. Gross! Dropping the last few feet to land in a crouch, she pushed off for the next obstacle.

If Kiba and Naruto didn't insist on arguing every time they were put in the same group or competing against Sasuke, they might actually give Shino or Ito a run for their money. Maybe not all the time, but somedays definitely. It was a shame they didn't focus on themselves as much as they did other people.

Ino could feel the hairs sticking to her sweaty forehead as she ran, glad for the cool breeze. There was the tight rope next: two lengths of rope drawn tight over a knee-deep trench of murky rain water. One rope at chest height, another at foot height. This one was her favourite by far, she resisted the urge to grin as she made quick work of it, and the one she was best at. She overtook Ito and Ichika easily after that, flashing the other girl in the group a grin as she ran past.

Yes! She made it, head of the group! Leading the group! Beat that!

She could even see a few stragglers from Group One on the next obstacle – obviously they'd fallen behind and couldn't catch up with the ones that had already finished the course. Usually, Iruka and Mizuki liked it when they kept some distance between different groups so numbers didn't get too muddled but as it was Ino could practically _feel_ herself beating her personal best. It was a race, no matter what the teachers said, a race against herself. And she was absolutely going to win!

The climbing net was quite similar to the crawl net, only that it was secured both to the ground and to a long wooden bar, ten feet in the air, and then to another bar in the air, before being secured again to the ground, forming a trapezoid shape altogether. Where the ladder was more of a test of strength, the climbing net was one of balance and agility – at least that's what Ino had figured. People like Naruto and Chouji practically threw themselves over the ladder, where someone like Shikamaru found the climbing net a lot simpler.

Ino grabbed onto a part of the net nearer to the edge, where the taught rope gave it more strength to hold her weight, and began to climb. Theoretically, the best place would be the middle of the net, where you had little chance of falling unless you were mon-u-men-tally stupid. But the middle sagged under any weight, so while it might be safe, it wasn't the fastest route. Usually, Ino picked somewhere in between the middle and the sides, especially when there were lots of people on the net - it was far too easy to be shoved off, after all – but there was only her and another girl up near the top so she felt pretty safe.

Passing the other girl, she began moving herself over the top of the crossbeam, onto the flat part of the netting, when her head jerked sharply.

"Ow!" She couldn't help but splutter out, craning her head back to see what was – oh. She'd been meaning to ask Dad to cut her hair for a while now, but he was so busy that she kept missing her chance to ask him. Her white-blonde ponytail was stuck now, thick strands caught between fingers. "Let go!"

"No." Nao smirked, tightening her grip, hair pulling sharply at her scalp.

"Miura! Stop!" Ino tried to tug against it, using her weight to pull but Nao's grip held. Her time! She was losing _seconds_ just sitting here! "Let me go, Nao!"

"Not until you say sorry!"

Ino felt her lips twist, "Sorry? For what? That I didn't realise how mean you were until it was too late?" She let out a gasp as her hair was yanked back.

"For being horrible to my nee-chan!" The purple-haired girl spat. "I don't know why you – "

"Wha-HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"

The loud shout startled them both, Nao loosening her grip on Ino's hair, and abruptly there was so much less force holding her in place and Ino had been straining so hard to _hurry up and let go,_ her hands slipped off the damp rope. Her only warning was the slight widening of Nao's brown eyes and then - then there was no rope where her left hand was and her body was dropping – Ino flailed wildly for the rope but she had leant too far left –

"In-"

She didn't even have time to shriek before she hit the ground ten feet below, feet first awkwardly into the hard dirt and then toppling backwards, head slamming onto the crash mat.

"-o!"

For a moment, she just lay there breathing harshly and staring upwards at the net above. Nao stared back down at her, eyes blown wide and lit up by the bright sky. Everything felt bruised. Her heart felt like it was beating so loudly surely people could hear it from Suna. She thought she'd missed the crash mat but she was lying on it now, sort of, so – what -

"Ino?" There were hands on her shoulders, "Can you move?"

She nodded, feeling hands pull her upright until Iruka's worried face came into view. The class was gathered around them, Naruto babbling some nonsense whilst Sakura kept shooting angry glares to a point out of view.

"Did you hit your head, Ino?" Iruka was asking, his arm now around her shoulder as Mizuki was saying something to the class. She strained her ears to catch it but then found her eyes drawing back to the brown haired chunin.

"I-I don't think so?" Her voice sounded croaky and strange and she went to lift her arm but found it feeling hot and sore so she left it where it was. "My arm…" She said, trying to tell him, the backs of her eyes beginning to sting…and her right foot – she hissed in pain when she tried to shift it, "…my –"

"I'm going to move you inside, okay?" Iruka said, just as Mizuki and the rest of class disappeared out of sight. "You took quite a nasty fall," His tone was deceptively light and he smiled reassuringly although it couldn't quite hide the worry in his eyes. Slipping an arm around her waist and another carefully under her knees, Ino found herself being carried inside the Academy building by Iruka.

Iruka set her down on a bench, grabbing a first aid kit out of a nearby cupboard and a couple of tissues. "Here," He said, holding them to her face as her breathing hitched. His face blurred for a moment before her fingers met the soft tissue and she scrubbed her eyes. "Bet that was scary, huh?"

"M'hmm," Ino sniffed, feeling the tears well up again as he eased her shoe off to look at the damage.

Iruka made a sympathetic noise, air whistling through his teeth, before reaching past her to grab a floppy looking blue bag from the green kit. Quickly he pressed something inside it, which made a snap sound and then helped her prop her ankle up on the bench – the cold compress wrapped in a few cotton bandages on top. "It's not broken, just a bad sprain." He said, patting her knee before moving to the scratches on her arm.

"I-is my Dad coming?" She asked hopefully, feeling her chest go tight. The alcohol stung where Iruka was dabbing it and she didn't realise she had sucked in her breath until he told her to relax.

Iruka nodded, "I'm sure we'll be seeing him soon. Ino…" His face went stern, and for just a moment she could see that he hadn't always been a teacher and chuunin wasn't a rank to scoff at lightly. "Everyone saw what happened."

"Everyone?"

He gave her a wan smile, "Naruto shouted loud enough that even some of the classes inside heard him."

Ino stared at her hands, the skin of her knuckles had torn and gone red and puffy. She had been hoping someone would catch Ami or Nao red-handed, but she hadn't been hoping to fall off the net! She shuddered.

"I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough to catch you." Iruka said, head bowed. "As your teacher I'm supposed to make sure you're safe."

"It's okay, sensei – I shouldn't have gone too close to the edge – " She rubbed the tissue over her face again and took a loud sniff. "- I – I messed up my times, didn't I?" Ino had to fight not to burst into tears all over again. She had been so close! So close to beating her score! She'd even overtaken some of the boys and maybe for once – the fastest time could have been a girls'! A few frustrated tears dripped down her chin anyways.

"Ah, Ino, you did well, fastest over the ladder today, and the tight-rope too." His tone was comforting but it didn't make her feel any better. There was a beat of silence as the teacher continued to treat her scrapes, adding a cute but large pink plaster over her arm and elbow, before it was interrupted by a swirl of leaves.

"Ino!"

Her shoulders dropped in relief, tears springing to her eyes again. "Daddy!"

/|\

Dad was angry. He took her straight home and bundled her up on the couch in her pyjamas and brought down the pink duvet from her bed to wrap herself in, muttering sharply under his breath. The house was quiet. Minoru was out of the village on a mission and Inojirou-jii usually liked to keep his afternoons for smoking and sipping tea with his old war buddies. Ino watched him bustle around for a moment – she felt a little pebble of guilt in her stomach for being secretly pleased to see him when he had so much work on.

Steeling herself, after he'd given her half a painkiller tablet, she reached out a hand to snag his sleeve.

"Daddy, it wasn't – Nao didn't–"

At his raised brow, she stuttered to a stop.

"Your teachers said she had you by your hair, ten feet off the ground," He fixed her a stern look that had her burrowing a little under the blanket. "I don't think the Academy has slipped so far as to not inform you all how dangerous it is to mess about on the obstacle course."

"But they do that all the time to us, try and trip us up and stuff," She interjected, why did it feel like he was scolding her instead? "Mi- _erm -_ someone said that they 'don't discourage bullying!'"

Dad dropped beside her onto the couch with a heavy sigh. "They don't." He said bluntly, pushing his fingers into his hair loosely. "Being tripped up isn't fun, but usually it does little harm. Enemy-nin will do far worse, trying to keep you from reaching the finish line. So the Academy doesn't discourage a few insults, or a few rough fists - kids will be kids." Even as he said it, it didn't sound at all like Dad agreed with it. "But they do have to draw a line," His eyes went to a spot above her head, like he was thinking of something else, before it was gone, and he was looking at her again. "That she tried to sabotage you so high up off the ground, not only shows stupidity but also a lack of planning and understanding of consequences. Essential, for any good ninja."

Ino stared at the wrap around her ankle, remembering Nao's face above as she lay on the ground. Sakura visited once school broke out, a sheaf of neatly copied out notes in blue ink for her and a wet sheen to her eyes. Her best friend had bobbed her head nervously at Dad when Genji had led her through the back of the shop to the house, but had all but sprinted towards the couch when she'd seen Ino. They spent the rest of the afternoon watching Princess Gale films and chatting about who the lead totally should have fallen in love with over pints of ice cream, while Dad worked in the kitchen, occasionally popping his head in to check on them before he went back to working.

Even though the day had been mildly disastrous, as Sakura chirped out a "I'll swing by tomorrow!" Ino couldn't help but feel happy. Okay, so she'd fallen, but on the plus side, Nao had been caught, and she'd gotten to spend the day at home and Dad had hugged her and sat with her until Sakura had stopped by. Even as a grumbling Inojirou-jii wandered in from the veranda door, she couldn't help the smile that crossed her face.

"What're you smiling at?" The grumpy old man eyed her suspiciously as he dropped onto his favourite armchair with a bit of a wheeze.

"Nothing!" She sing-songed airily and pulled her warm duvet tighter around her, so that she looked like a ball of pink that had an Ino-head sticking out the top. "Did you have a good day, jii-san?"

"No," He harrumphed, turning back to the dancing figure of Princess Gale on the telly.

"I fell, and" She said, scrunching the toes on her left foot (since her right foot hurt) to see if she could see it moving under the mound of blankets (-she couldn't), "Sakura came to visit and we had ice cream, see!" She didn't point, Ino would have to take her arms out of the cocoon for that, but she did try and gesture with her eyes to the now empty tub on the low table in front of the telly.

Inojirou-jii's wiry silver eyebrows arched in a way that distinctly reminded her of Dad. "Don't be sick later – Inoichi!"

Dad appeared in the doorway to the kitchen nearly at once, hair trailing out behind him. His face relaxed when he saw who it was, shoulders slumping. "You're here, good," He strode forwards and bent at the waist to plant a kiss on Ino's cheek, who wrinkled her nose at the feeling of stubble. Gross! Dad needed to shave! "I've got a meeting to attend, so don't wait up for me."

Ino opened her mouth to protest. Already? She thought he'd taken the rest of the day off – and besides, she hadn't even asked about getting her hair cut yet. Before she could say anything, he was ruffling her slightly bruised scalp and darting for the door, sweeping up his papers with a hurried – "See you later."

"Bye…" Ino called after him, voice trailing away.

Across the table, Inojirou-jii was watching her carefully.

"What?" She scowled as the old man set out a bowl in front of her, dinner that she hadn't even noticed Dad put down before he left.

"If you want your father to spend more time with you, you should just say so."

Ino rolled her eyes. She leant forwards to grab her half full rice bowl and a few veggies before sitting back again. "Dad's busy, jii-san." _Duh._

Her grandfather let out a snort, muttering something under his breath that she couldn't quite catch. On the screen, Princess Gale was just being confronted by her evil best friend, traitor to her country.

 _"Princess Gale, somehow I knew it would be you!"_

 _"Fuyuki, tell me this storm isn't your doing?"_

 _"All my life, I have –"_ CRUNCH

Ino tore her eyes away from the screen, scowling at the loud crunch as her dinner companion munched happily on pickled carrots. Did he have to be so loud? And she'd thought old people had weak teeth! The screen flared up with light, the explosion blaring from the speakers. As the smoke cleared, Princess Gale stood tall, her dark hair flickering behind her in the wind like a flame.

 _"Fuyuki, you were my blood-sister, my sworn comrade, I have treated you like family, I see now I was wr-"_

"What a load of tripe!"

"Jii-san!" Ino glared at him, half-heartedly. It wasn't the best Gale movie but it certainly wasn't 'tripe', Sakura would faint if she heard! "I was watching that!"

The old man chewed his food, watching her with pupil-less blue eyes. "Bah!" He said at last, dropping the remote onto the armchair beside him and out of Ino's reach. "Don't watch the telly while you eat, it's bad for digestion."

"…I don't need a stinky smoker like you to tell me what to do…" She muttered below her breath, shoving a bit of food in begrudgingly.

"Did you say something?"

"Nope!" She beamed at him innocently. Inojirou-jii's brow twitched.

After dinner, which involved her grumpy grandfather tapping his pipe against his leg impatiently while Ino did her best to take tiny _sloooww_ bites, they went through her meditation. Being injured didn't change that at all, it turned out.

Her clan training – the part of the meditation meant to focus her mindscape and enable her interactions within – was at a bit of a standstill, currently. According to Minoru – because Inojirou-jii liked his mystery – there were stages to learning the Mind-Body techniques that their clan was famous for. He hadn't been particularly informative about the number of stages or how long it had taken him, but Ino wasn't even halfway to stage one yet! Mostly, her grandfather would let her drop back into her head and let her work a bit more on the details of her mind's persona. She still wasn't much further than her ankles, but at least the ghostly limbs she could form felt more like her own now.

Her sensory training - on the other hand – seemed to be going backwards! No one had believed her when she said she'd sensed the street outside the flower shop that one time, Inojirou-jii most of all. He seemed to think she must have dozed off a bit during the meditation and dreamt it all! Which was stupid because if she'd had the option to dream while meditating uncomfortably in his house, she would have dreamt of something far more interesting than the route from the sitting room to the street. What a lame dream! Her grandfather had smirked and said if she was so sure, then she should do it again, and here lay the problem.

Ino couldn't. Every night after dinner under the old man's watchful eye she tried to reach out to the street again, spreading her senses as far as she could until she felt like a rubber band close to snapping back. And every time, she only got as far as the gate to the courtyard! The gate!

She breathed heavily through her nose, flaring her nostrils. Okay – focus. Con-

"Concentrate."

Right. The TV was quiet now, no sign of the strange electrical whine that usually accompanied flickering pictures. Her breathing and Inojirou-jii's soft puffs were audible above the faint rattling of wind against the house. She could hear the fridge, whirring quietly under it all, from the kitchen. It was strange training at home instead of at her grandfather's house. If the Yamanaka Flower Shop faced the main street, then Ino and Dad lived directly in the rooms adjoined behind and above it. She could hear the civilian Eri-oba calling out for last call sales of her handcrafted jewelry, but this was less because her sensing had improved and more to do with how close she now was to the main road (and how loud Eri-oba was.)

There was a general hum of chatter from the street, gossip probably, but nothing she could really make out beyond the fact that yes, there were voices. Would the gossip be about Nao and her today? Ino had…Ino had been hoping the other girl would get in trouble. She had been hoping the sisters might try something in view of the teachers so that their infuriating behaviour would stop. It would be a lie to say that she and Sakura hadn't been carefully watching the other girls in hopes that Iruka and Mizuki might catch one of therm. And it had been paying off too – last week, Izumi had been caught by their kunoichi teacher in music class trying to cheat off Sakura's worksheets and gotten a scolding in front of the whole class, and there had been a lovely lull in the bullying, until today at least. But she hadn't meant for – on top of the climbing net, Ino hadn't been saying very nice things either.

Perhaps, if she'd been less frustrated about her time and more aware of where she was, she might have gritted out an apology instead. Or at least answered more politely, neg-o-ti-a-ted her way out instead. She hadn't meant for this to happen.

The scrape on her arm itched.

"Ino."

She flinched, breathing in again deeply. Right. Training. Meditation. She tried to ignore the itchy feeling of her arm and focused again on the room. Her nose twitched at the bitter smell of Inojirou-jii's pipe, it almost seemed stronger than usual, slightly nutty and dry on her tongue. It mixed oddly with the faint smell of the rice and vegetables they'd finished, the empty bowls still waiting to be cleaned. She could still hear the fridge going, the sound of the wind, although it was odd to not hear the creaking of the gate by her grandfather's house, - instead there was the sounds of Eri-oba packing up her cart, the jangling of metals and stones like bells. There were footsteps going down the street. The heavy plodding of patrons heading to the food district for late dinners, or the pitter-patter of children running. For dessert, perhaps.

Ino felt herself straighten as light footsteps approached the alleyway that ran down the side of the flower shop. Light tread, even steps, but hesitant.

There was a loud knock on the front door.

"How many?"

She concentrated, listening to the faint exchange of whispers. "Two…it's…" Her eyes flickered uncertainly behind closed eyelids. "I think it's Shikamaru-kun and Chouji-kun?"

Inojirou-jii sighed and she could hear him drop his elbow onto the armrest of his chair heavily. "Alright, go on then."

She blinked her eyes open, pushing away the mound of blankets she was under and stumbling awkwardly to her feet as she adjusted to the bright room again.

"Do you want my cane?"

She shook her head, no way, was she going to open the door holding a cane like some old person! "No thanks!" Her right foot was bandaged up thickly around a splint and couldn't really bear any weight, but Ino could hop and flap her arms so she figured she'd be fine. "Coming!" She called out as she wobbled her way through the kitchen into the hallway.

There was a bit off shuffling outside the door.

Carefully, dropping down the step by using the shoe cabinet in the entryway for support, she hopped the last bit over to the door. "Who is it?" She asked, hand reaching for the lock. Minoru had snorted the first time he'd heard her do it but hadn't said anything but ruffle her hair.

"Uh, Chouji and Shikamaru."

She'd been right! She turned the lock with a grin and hopped back a few steps to open the door. The boys were stood on the front step when she saw them, Shikamaru slouching over small box in his hands and Chouji slightly behind him holding a tin.

"Erm, hi," She said, smile dropping slightly as they both sort of twitched funnily, both flicking eyes to the pink plaster on her arm. "Do you – uh – want to come in?"

Ino turned to fetch them a pair of slippers each when they nodded, hearing the lock click shut behind her. There weren't many kid-sized ones in the cupboard but after a few long moments of rummaging, she did eventually manage to produce her old pair (which were pink with love-hearts) and the pair Sakura sometimes used (which were also pink but had Princess Gale). She dropped them to the floor and hopped up the step to the hallway.

"Sorry about the pink, we don't really have any other ones your size." She said, feeling self-conscious.

She could see they weren't ecstatic about wearing girly slippers, but they didn't complain as they followed behind her wobbly hopping, heading back into the kitchen.

"Er, Ino-chan, are you sure you should be up?" Chouji's hands would probably be flapping nervously if they weren't busy holding things.

"It's – fine – " She said, it was really tiring though. She dropped into the chair at the dining table ungracefully, but gratefully as she tried to catch her breath. "Please – sit."

Inojirou-jii had disappeared from the room, leaving the windows cracked and the door, leading to the veranda and the rest of the compound, open. The boys seemed to share a glance and clambered into seats on one side of the table.

"Um…" Surprisingly, it was mild-mannered Chouji who spoke first, pushing the metal tin across the table. "I brought you some cake." He said hesitantly as Ino lifted the lid off, ignoring the Akimichi logo on the top. The cake inside looked amazing, delicious looking buttercream spread over the top and dusted with pink and purple sprinkles. It didn't look as professional as some of the bakeries she'd seen by the Akimichi compound and the icing wasn't very smooth over the top – but it did look yummy.

And judging by the reddening hamster cheeks – "Did you make this?" She gaped at the boy.

"My mum helped." His face went tomato red and his eyes dropped to the cake again.

"Oh." Ino fidgeted in her seat, feeling a matching flush of her own rise up. She tucked her hair behind her ear. "That's – it looks good – thank you."

There was an aggrieved sigh before a heavy thunk sounded as Shikamaru placed his box down on the table. "It would be troublesome if I didn't turn up with a gift too." And then proceeded to wrinkle his nose at it. "Don't open it indoors, it stinks."

Ino's eyes dropped to the innocent looking box in alarm. "W-what is it?"

"Deer musk." Shikamaru made another face again, and it was honestly the most expressive she had ever seen the lazy boy.

"Thanks, I guess. It's for my foot, right?" The boy nodded. Ino glanced at them both again. Did their parents send them? After a second of deliberation, she decided it didn't matter. They'd still given her some medicine and cake, though it would have been easy to share the dessert between themselves and just leave the oil somewhere in the village. She glanced down at the cake tin again – it was only fair. 'Do you guys want a slice?' She meant to say as her fingers closed around the metal lid, instead what came out was: "I thought you guys didn't like me."

Ino's eyes widened and she had to fight the urge to drop the lid of the tin, in favour of covering her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that! "I…I mean, I thought – "

Shikamaru's lips twitched into a frown as he shared a glance with Chouji. "We thought _you_ didn't like us."

"Wh-what?!" She tried to think over her interactions with them both these past few months. They'd never asked her to come play with them – and they'd never come to by the flower shop, not even with their parents. "But you guys were the ones ignoring me!" Ino protested. They hadn't even said hello at the Academy!

Chouji's brow furrowed, his fingers curling and uncurling in the fabric of his jumper. "But Ino-chan, you never came to the park to play with us – " He said softly, looking at Shikamaru again, some sort of boy code passing in their eyes that made Ino want to huff. "Everyone else was there, even Sasuke."

"That's 'cause Daddy didn't let me!" Ino burst out, missing both the boys' jumping at the sudden volume. She was too caught up to even be embarrassed about calling her father Daddy. "He said it was dangerous! And I wasn't allowed out the compound by myself until I started the Academy!" Even now, when she was allowed to walk home by herself, she still had a curfew! She bet Chouji and Shikamaru didn't get curfews!

"Why?" The Nara asked, leaning forwards now that it seemed the outburst was over. "All the other clan kids did it."

All of them? It was Ino's turn to slump. "Daddy gets very…" Her nose wrinkled. "Protective. I think. I mostly played with my cousins up until now." It was true. Her friends before going to the Academy had been Genji and Etsuko in the flower shop, and Mariko who was genin now and didn't have time to play anymore. Minoru-baka didn't count! Some kids would come in with their parents to buy flowers but not regularly enough that she got to know any of them.

"Troublesome," Shikamaru was nearly face down on the table at this point, head pillowed on his arms. "We thought you were avoiding us because you didn't come to the park, so we didn't talk to you at school. And you thought we were ignoring you at school, so you didn't try either." And the dinner at Yakiniku-Q had only seemed to make things worse, he didn't have to say.

Ino frowned. When put like that it sounded… kind of … dumb?

"We- " Chouji opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. She sort of wanted him to just say whatever it was he was hesitating about but Shikamaru gave her a long look from where his face was half-hidden by his arms, and so she kept quiet. "I have – I use the bento box you got me for snacks at school," He said, at last, cheeks pinking. "I don't - I like you, Ino-chan!" Ino could feel the flush burning immediately up her neck and she spluttered for a response as Chouji seemed to realise what he'd said. "I mean – I think it would be nice to be friends!"

"Um! I!" For lack of words, she shoved her face into her fingers, peeking through them and feeling far too warm.

Shikamaru looked a little warm himself, scratching his neck with a put-upon sigh. "You're troublesome – but I don't mind it."


End file.
